PR 

4381 
54 






AN INQUIRY 



INTO 



THE MORAL CHARACTER 



OF 






To Philosophy, enh'^hteiiert by the Affections, does it alone belong properly to 
estimate the claims of the deceasocl on the one hand, and of the present age and 
future generations on the other, and to strike tlie balance between tliem. 

WORDSWORTH. 



BY JiW. SIMMONS. 



> 



NEW YORK : 

PUBLISHED BY E. BLISS & E. WHITE, No. 128 BROADWAIT. 

Dodd & Manter, Printers, No. 1 Thames Street. 

1824. 



^■/ 



AN INQUIRY 

INTO 
OF / 

LORD BYRON. 



CERTAIN Critics of the present day, Puritans 
in morals, and E})icnreans in philosophy, imagine 
they liave discovered that all the reorrcts whiclt 
have been poured over the tombs of ill-starred 
Genius, and all the sympathies which have been 
consecrated to its mournful memory, have been a 
species of mere fanfaro?io,des issuin<^ from the lips 
of those who seem to think that the darkest sor- 
rows of this life are the peculiar inheritance of in- 
spired minds, and constitute the melancholy con- 
ditions upon w^hich great talents are conferred. («) 
They "can see no reason why men of genius should 
not he just as comfortable in the world, and par- 
take as fully and with as much zest of its good 
things, as their humhle fellow mortals of plain and 
inoffensive understandings. In short, they appre- 
hend, that a general survey of the history of men ol" 
literary eminence, will show that, instead of being 
as wretched as here (St. Pierrie on Rousseau) and 
elsewhere represented, they enjoy life quite as 
much as any other class ofpei'sons." (h) From "a 



general survey of the history of men of literary 
eminence," or rather, men of genius, (for literary 
eminence does not always imply genius, as our cri- 
tic probably can testify,) an inference the reverse 
of this, we apprehend, is to be drawn. From such 
a survey, we are unavoidably led to deduce the 
discouraging truth, that, while it is made the foun- 
dation of Natural Law, that man should be left to 
pursue his own happiness in his own way ; happi- 
ness is almost entirely dependant upon circumstan- 
ces over which we can have no possible controul ; 
and seems to be least attainable by those who have 
usually the greatest capacity for its enjoyment — 
men of acute intellectual sensibility. These re- 
marks are suggested by the personal history of the 
extraordinary Individual whose Moral Character 
we purpose briefly to consider. The somewhat 
anomalous character of Lord Byron, both as a 
writer and a man, presents a w ide field of inquiry 
to the philosopher, and the critic, and is calculated 
perhaps, to exhaust, alike the ingenuity of specula- 
tion and the powers of metaphysical analysis. His 
frame, morally and intellectually, may be said re- 
peatedly to have undergone the nicest operations 
of the anatomical pen; and yet the mystery of his 
being, remains still to be developed. The analysis 
of Mind, unlike that of Matter, requires in every 
stage of its progress, certain data and criteria in 
order to direct and facilitate its operations, which, 
while they are but rarely afforded to the inquirer,^ 
are at the same time, in a great degree, vague, hy- 
pothetical, and unsatisfactory. It is in such cases 
that we are led to remark, and to lament the limita- 
tion which seemed set to the researches of the hu- 
man mind. Unlike the natural, the intellectual 



world has but one horizon, and that, perhaps in 
wisdom, is the sensible. We are not among the ad- 
vocates of the doctrine of the perfectibihty of mind, 
because we are not certain that Ave possess any 
definite notions of that state, whether moral, intel- 
lectual, or physical, which we generalize under the 
term perfection, and which we would designate 
by that term.(c) But we do think that the perfec- 
tibility of Moral Science might be predicated up- 
on more rational grounds, were we able to origi- 
nate and practically to apply a species of moral 
equations, whereby we might be enabled to ascer- 
tain and classify the phenomena of the social as 
well as those of the natural world ; and where the 
contiguity of any two personal actions, like that of 
any two natural events, might be resolved into the 
process of cause and effect. The great truths of 
Morality, as well as of Revelation, have been long 
since expounded and promulgated; notwithstand- 
ing which, both Ethics and Religion continue to be, 
the one problematical, and the other subjected to 
the test, not of faith, but of reason. And, as there 
have been zealots in religion, so, there have been 
persecutors in morals ; and if the heretic has been 
subjected to the pyre and the stake, the man of 
doubtful morality has been consigned to a mode of 
punishment, even more unenlightened and unchris- 
tian; and this frequently for no other reason, than 
because his morality has been peculiar. The 
chief object of this Inquiry into the moral charac- 
ter of Lord Byron, a man who has been for so 
many years the admiration and the wonder of the 
age, is to afford, if possible, a metaphysical solu- 
tion of the moral problem, into which the strange 
discrepancy between his sentiments and his ac- 



6 

tions, between his theory and jiractice of morals, 
may be said to have resolv ed itself. The nearest 
and the only approach to a philosophical analysis 
of this sort, with which we are acquainted, is to be 
met with in the twelfth number, of the New Month- 
ly Magazine. (Art. De Mussefs Life of Rousseau.) 
In commenting upon the singular contradiction 
which Rousseau's conduct afforded of his princi- 
ples, Mr. Campbell (for the article alluded to, car- 
ries with it all the evidences of his liberal and en- 
lightened mind) remarks, that the latter had be- 
come depraved before he was old enough to regu- 
late the former. This, from all that we have been 
able to gather of that extraordinary man, seems 
undoubtedly to have been the case. Rousseau's 
moral principles and feelings had become the one 
warped, and the other radically depraved, long 
previous to the unfolding of his fine and vigorous 
intellect. Long before his beautiful mind had put 
forth in bloom, his enthusiastic morals had "grown 
to seed." In other and more philosophical words, 
his passive impressions had been confirmed before 
his active principles had unfolded themselves. It 
is to be remarked, that the very laws of our consti- 
tution in which is founded our capacity for moral 
improvement, is founded, at the same time, our 
capacity for moral evil. Much therefore, will de- 
pend upon Education, particular modes of life, and 
the nature of our more constant occupations. 
Herein obtains the difference between the man of 
the world, or the man of business, and the man of 
secluded habits of life. Although the latter be pos- 
sessed of higher powers of mind, and of greater 
purity and nobleness of principle, yet, from habitu- 
al indulgence in the fatal propensity of genius, to 



'-accommodate the shows of things, to the desires 
of the mind," from a kind oi routine of thought, soh- 
tary but enthusiastic, he is hable to become the 
victim of his own delusions. These delusions, at 
the same time, untempered, or, at least, not modi- 
fied by that general experience, or experience of 
the world, ^\ hich forms the sad, though perhaps, 
the solitary corrective of those habits of mental in- 
dulgence, which prove so often fatal to the peace 
and welfare of their possessor: whereas, the for- 
mer becomes confirmed in his active principles, by 
having his passive impressions continually influen- 
ced by a moi"al experience. So entirely does our 
moral improvement seem to depend upon our mo- 
ral experience — the latter giving rise to the former, 
and afterwards confirming it. Our "bane and an- 
tidote," being thus placed before us, as it were, by 
nature herself, the question suggests itself, does it 
ilepend entirely upon ourselves whether we avail 
us of these original, though somewhat enexplicable 
provisions of nature ? The answer is perhaps ob- 
vious — something does depend upon ourselves; but 
more rests with education and our active princi- 
ples. It has been objected to Rousseau's system 
of Education, as unfolded in the Emelius, that it 
applies rather to the species than to the individual. 
It does not admit of those exceptions which na- 
ture herself seems to have been studious in form- 
ing, and which, iji the persons of such men as 
Rousseau himself, and in an equally remarkable 
degree, the Subject of this inquiry, set at defiance 
alike the wisest provisions of human experience, 
and the profoundest investigations of moral science. 
Rousseau's system of education, however perfect 
in theory it may be, admits not of being put into 



practice; and is perhaps one of the most visiona- 
ry and gratuitous of the speculations of moral 
economy. Human life admits not in its every 
day, and practical forms, of the concentration of 
those " traits of truth,'' which, according to Mr. 
Campbell, is more practical than truth itself Un- 
happily for man, his heart rather than his under- 
standing, seems to require the aid of cultivation, 
while, at the same time, the latter is generally 
allowed to receive that degree and measure of care 
and cultivation, which had been perhaps more 
appropriately and happily bestowed upon the for- 
mer. Mr. Stewart observes of Lock, in his View 
of the Progress of Metaphysical Philosophy, that, 
"in every thing connected with the culture of the 
heart, he distrusted nature altogether; placing his 
sole reliance in the effect of a systematical and 
vigilant discipline." Mr. Stewart dissents from 
Lock upon this point, and takes occasion to re- 
mark that^the great object of education is " not to 
thwart and disturb, but to study the aim and fa- 
cilitate the accomplishment of the beneficial ar- 
rangements of nature." But surely this remark 
does not tend to affect the soundness of the doc- 
trine broached by Lock. The heart is naturally 
prone to evil, and requires therefore, the aid of 
this "systematical and vigilant discipline." We 
are inclined to believe that many a well disposed 
mind has become depraved from the want of it; and 
that many an ill-disposed one has been reclaimed 
and corrected by it. There is a taint of original 
sin in our nature ; " For Virtue cannot so inoculate 
our old stock, but we shall relish of it ; and it 
requires early and vigilant attention on the part 
of those who have the care of our education* 



.9 



to repress and to repel the first workings of that 
principle of Evili which, however, the idea may be 
reprobated as either false or irreverent, is still la- 
tent in the mind, and forever tending to counter- 
act the benevolent suggestions of education, and 
afterwards of our moral experience. The mind 
left to itself, will frequently, by virtue of its strong 
divinity, thrive and expand even under the pres- 
sure of adverse circumstances; but once neglect 
the heart, and it sinks to its natural level — yields to 
its downward tendency, and travels the road to 
ruin with a facility the most disgusting, and a cele- 
rity the most incomputable. The Evangelist has 
accordingly with great beauty and justness of illus- 
tration, likened the nature of man to that of "the 
wild Ass's colt," which must be broke before it can 
be tamed, and even then retains a portion of its 
original propensity to evil. But while this syste- 
matical and vigilant discjphne, which Lock recom- 
mends, seems to be essential in the culture of the 
moral powers, the misfortune is, that they will not 
always admit of it : because, as we shall have oc- 
casion more fully to remark, at that very period of 
life at Avhich education should properly commence, 
the heart will generally be found, more particu- 
larly with minds of an high order and a certain 
constitutional temperament, to take upon itself the 
culture and direction of its powers. The poetical 
temperament is, beyond all others, liable to those 
inward influences, those original suggestions of its 
own exclusive nature, which, while it should be 
the business of education to correct them, are be- 
yond its power to controul — acquiring, as they do, 
their full force precisely at that period at which 
education should come in to oppose, by anticipa- 



10 

ting, as it were, their growth and operation. With 
minds of a different cast and tendency irom the 
poetical, the case is widely otherwise. And this 
because with such minds, (minds whose powers 
do not lie within the department of the Fine Arts) 
Education is the mere handmaid to nature her- 
self; subservient to her views and promoting her 
designs. Accordingly, when Locke attributes to 
education the existence of the moral qualities he 
possessed, we understand and coincide with him ; 
because the constitution of his mind was such as 
to render it open to the influences of education ; 
its tendency was in an eminent degree practical. 
To all such minds, education is perhaps of incal- 
culable benefit. The habitual attentions of such 
minds is directed to subjects calculated to reflect 
back upon them the most wholesome influence. 
And herein obtains the distinction between all such 
minds, and others of less practical tendency — in 
selecting for the exercise of their attention, classes 
of objects essentially different in themselves. This 
selection, at the same time, not being a casual and 
voluntary direction of the powers of the mind and 
a capricious choice of subjects for the exercise of 
its attention, but the result of its constitutional 
temperament and tendency ; and over this tem- 
perament and this tendency, education appears to 
us to exercise a very limited, or rather, a very 
questionable influence. No man's education was, 
perhaps, more faulty than that of Gibbon ; but we 
are not disposed, at the same time, to attribute to 
this circumstance, as many have done, the exis« 
tence of that spirit of infidelity which has diffused 
a moral gloom around the splendours of his genius. 
We doubt whether the most rigid and unremitting 



.11 

system of education would have exercised any 
very decided influence upon the character of his 
gorgeous and romantic mind. This powerful and 
original mind — constitutionally prone to excess, 
coming in contact with the gloomy but sublime 
fables of Antiquity, and, more particularly, the 
early and fascinating history of that splendid and 
almost fabulous People, the decline and fall of 
whose once boundless empire, he has recorded 
and commemorated with a spirit and a zeal, a fer- 
vour and an eloquence, not unworthy of the in- 
spiring theme — this early initiation into the sub- 
lime mysteries and moralities of ancient times — its 
Mythology, its Poetry and its Heroism — over all of 
which there reigned a pure and beautiful delusion, 
and into all of which there was infused the spirit al- 
mostofanotherand an elder world than man's — thus 
educated, as it were, in the midst of all that was 
sublime in morals and in mind, grand and impos- 
ing, yet pure, primeval and visionary, even to ro- 
mance, in character — dwelling continually in the 
midst of solemn forms, gorgeous emblems, and con- 
secrated relics of things ineffable to the uninitiat- 
ed, and for that reason, awful and impressive — the 
mind of Gibbon became oe'rinformed by the subli- 
mities in which it was continually inveloped, and 
which, from administring to its high moral and in- 
tellectual cravings, with ai* 

" Even handed justice, 



Commended th' ingredients of his poisoned chalice, 
To his own lips." 

And thus it would appear that, while education is 
unable to administer to minds of a certain consti- 
tutional temperament, such minds, at the same time^ 



12- 

in the earliest stages of their developemeiit, by a 
congenial sympathy, a sort of principle of attrac- 
tion, are found to yearn after and to embrace, with 
a fervour peculiar to genius, precisely those studies 
which are in an eminent degree calculated to con- 
firm this temperament. And thus it is that those 
minds which "are of imagination all compact," are 
perhaps the least susceptible of that moral culture 
to which minds of an inferior order are exclu- 
sively indebted, perhaps, for every virtue which 
they may possess. And thus it is, by further con- 
sequence, that such minds are impelled and driven 
forAvard, as clouds obey the wind, in their meteor 
and erratic courses, by this powerful impulse 
which nature herself seems to have given, and 
which only acquires additional force by the aid of 
those circumstances to which the mind is subject- 
ed in obeying the very direction it has thus re- 
ceived. It is a little singular that Mr. Stewart 
should undertake to reject as false and mistaken, 
the very impartial estimate which Locke seems to 
have formed of his own character. He attributed 
to the education he had received, the existence of 
those moral qualities which, however, according 
to Mr. Stewart, " he owed to the regulating influ- 
ence of his own reason, in fostering his natural dis- 
positions." The writings of Locke could have 
afforded to Mr. Stewai-t no possible insight into 
what may have been his "natural dispositions;" and 
in no other way, we presume, could he have be- 
come acquainted with them. When Locke assures 
us, therefore, that he owed the correction of his na- 
tural dispositions to the influence of education, we 
are surely bound to believe him, and to reject Mr. 
Stewart's opinion to the contrary. Mr. Stewart's 



13 

remark, that nature should be left to " the accom- 
plishment of her own beneficial arrangements," 
does not tend, we repeat, to impugn the force of 
Locke's position that, in the culture of the heart 
education is alone to be relied upon. When Mr. 
Stewart tells us further, that " the great object of 
education is not to thwart, but to study the aim 
and facilitate the accomplishment of the arrange- 
ments of nature," he only repeats the observation 
of Rousseau; Avhich, however plausible it may ap- 
pear, is without any foundation in reason. Nor 
will this subject admit of the common illustrations 
which have been brought to bear upon it. The 
growth of the child may be impeded by certain 
devices employed in early liiis in order to preserve 
the proportions of the body, and by bending the 
twig too far, you may retard the growth and des- 
troy the symmetry of the tree. But no illustra- 
tions derived from matter can throw any light upon 
mind; and the education of moral and intelligent 
beings is not to be compared to the culture of trees. 
All men, at a certain time of life, undergo the same, 
or very nearly the same education, as relates both 
to morals and to mind. It is only at this age that 
education can be said " to study the aim and fa- 
cilitate the accomplishment of the beneficial ar- 
rangements of nature." And yet, how does edu- 
cation effect this end.^^ or, can it be said to effect 
it at all? How is the nature and disposition of 
the child to be discovered before this age ^ And 
after it, the disposition, whatever it may be, has 
become so confirmed by nature herself, that it may 
be said to react. — it assumes the reign, and directs 
instead of being directed by education. The 
slightest observation, we apprehend, will have fur- 



14 

nished us ivith this fact. It is with the moral as 
with the intellectual powers, after having received 
a certain degree of culture, they are generally 
found to develope themselves. The direction 
which the mind is destined to take through life, 
usually discloses itself at an early period ; and if 
the bias be a strong one, as in most gifted minds it 
is, so far from being able to eradicate, as many have 
supposed it capable of doing, education has scarce- 
ly sufficient power even to modify it.(c^) Of what 
use then, it may be asked, is the culture of the mo- 
ral powers ? To this we m ould answer that, where 
the bias we have been speaking of, happens to be 
of a cheerful and pratical nature, the effect of a 
proper education may be to strengthen and con- 
firm it; and where it is of an opposite description, 
at least, perhaps, to temper and to modify it. But 
there are kinds and degrees of education very dif- 
ferent in themselves, and producing, perhaps, equal- 
ly opposite effects. Of these, the education by ex- 
ample appears to us to be the most practical in its 
tendency, and the most replete with moral dignity. 
But of this practical wisdom, supposing the exam- 
ple set to be at once characterised by virtue and 
intelligence, the mind cannot avail itself until its 
powers begin to unfold themselves. Until the mo- 
ral sense, which discriminates between the nicest 
shades of virtue and vice, right and wrong, has par- 
tially unfolded itself, and has commenced the first 
of that series of observations upon human life and 
character, which in turn afford to this sense those 
facts and that experience Avhich are essential to the 
success of its future investigations and inductions. 
It would seem to follow from this that, afler the 
mind has once begun to unfold its powers, the mo- 



15 

ral character educates itself, from those patterns 
of Truth and Virtue set before it, silently inculcat- 
ing what mere precept never could instil. From 
being continually in the presence of Virtue, sur- 
rounded by its emblems and inspirations, Truth 
and Innocence, it seems to result almost as necessa- 
rily that the character should imbibe, if not the 
spirit, at least the love of that which is Pure, Ho- 
nourable and Humane, as that the copy should 
bear a resemblance to the thing copied. The mo- 
ral character, we repeat, educates itself after the 
mind begins to unfold its powers. Before that 
period, what is commonly called education is per- 
haps the merest mummery and mockery in the 
w orld. Not but that there are a thousand things 
whose influence upon the character of the man, 
may be traced down to their first effect upon the 
child : we would be understood expressly to speak 
of the formal inculcation of moral principles at 
a very early period of life. This may be of service 
to coarse and common minds, incapable of instruct- 
ing themselves, and requiring to be drilled into every 
thing. But to a mind born to think for itself, it 
merely affords subtleties for ingenuity to develope, 
and themes f(jr the profoundest investigations of 
philosophy. It will be remembered that we are 
speaking of the effect of moral culture upon the 
poetical mind. The effect of Education upon its 
intellectual powers we apprehend to be the same, 
or very nearly so. We are almost tempted to 
think, that that perversion of the moral principle 
which dictated Swift's extraordinary conduct to 
Stella and Vanessa, was in all probability the re- 
sult of the same cause which may be said, however 
remotely, to have occasioned his failure in obtain- 



16 

ing a deajree at Trinity College. And this cause will 
be found, we apprehend, to have lain in the weak- 
ness of those active principles which, if they be 
the source of practical virtue, suggest to the un- 
derstanding at the same time, the propriety as 
w^ll as the prudence of exerting its energies in 
, cases in which the usual incentive to 'action, at 
least with the particular mind we are considering, 
may be wanting — namely, that peculiar interest 
which such a mind usually imparts to its subject, 
and which in turn reflects a beauty and a grace 
upon this subject. We beg leave to repeat here 
a few remarks which we ventured to offer a short 
time ago upon the subject of the Active Principles 
of our nature. In what appears to us to have 
been the extreme weakness of these principles, in 
the person of the extraordinary Individual whose 
moral character we propose more particularly to 
investigate, resulted many of those errors and mis- 
fortunes which threw a gloom over his eventful 
life, and constituted one of the many sources of 
his grief For the mind ot" Lord Byron was keenly 
alive to a perception of its ow n frailties, over which 
his great and proud spirit wept in secret, with a 
deep and unutterable feeling. T^ese remarks 
moreover, are offered as perhaps affording a solu- 
tion of the difficulty we set out w ith proposing to 
investigate, namely, that of supposing vicious ha- 
bits to be blended in one and the same mind, with 
the most vivid and the purest impressions of virtue. 
The premises assumed by Bisliop Butler in his 
Analogy of Religion, in treating of the moral-ap- 
proving and disapproving faculty, will be admitted, 
we apprehend, to be at once philosophical and 
just. From these premises therefore, we will 



17 

proceed to make the obvious inductions, which are 
in favour of the moral character of Lord Byron. 
" Our perception of vice and virtue," says Butler, 
" arises from a comparison of the actions with the 
nature and capacities of the agent" — in other 
words, it depends almost entirely " upon the nature 
and capacities of the agent," whether the action be 
virtuous or otherwise.(/") In one man the same 
action would be positively vicious, which in ano- 
ther would be comparatively innocent, or at least, 
less vicious. We will not suppose an extreme case 
in order to evince this ; because that would be to 
prove only what every one knows. We will not, 
for instance, take the case of a Natural or a Luna- 
tic who may have committed a murder, and say 
that because it was not his intention to murder, he 
is less criminal than another man who is guilty of 
the same crime, with the deliberate intention to 
kill. But we will take the case of a man whose 
passive impressions have been confirmed previous 
to the developement of his active principles ; whose 
morals have been depraved ere his understanding 
had unfolded itself; with whom the moral-appro- 
ving and disapproving faculty was no guide, be- 
cause the Agent had become confirmed in those 
actions which constitute the object of this faculty, 
ere the faculty itself had been developed. — Of a 
man who, when he came to know himself, found 
that he had contracted vicious habits without 
having known what vice was. — Of one with whom 
vice and virtue had been mere terms of relation, tp 
which no definite ideas were attached. In short, 
we will take the case of a man like Lord Byron, 
and when we come to compare " the actions 
with the nature and capacities of the agent," 

3 



18 

the moral perception which must result from 
such comparison, appears to us to be decidedly 
in favour of his character. (^) The question 
has been asked, if Virtue be a primary object of 
natural desire, how comes it that as such it is sel- 
dom sought, at least, in the way best calculated to 
obtain it ? or when sought obtained ? Whereas 
Vice, its contrary, which cannot be considered an 
object of natural desire, is yet apparantly often 
pursued, and as often obtained ? To this it may 
be replied, that Virtue, as an object of natural 
desire, is a passive impression, and, unhappily for 
human nature, like all passive impressions, the 
stronger it is allowed to become, the weaker grows 
that habit or moral ability by which alone Virtue 
is to be attained — the Active Principle or habit of 
practical exertion. The man whose delicacy of 
sentiment is most perfect, and whose passive im- 
pressions consequently are in the least degree 
refined, is less apt to acquire that habit of ex- 
ertion which seems alone to be regarded as 
constituting Virtue, than another man of less con- 
stitutional refinement. The latter, consequently, 
if not early initiated into practical habits, will be 
more liable to error and misconduct than the for- 
mer ; for, as Adam Smith remarks, " this disposi- 
tion, (delicacy of sentiment) though it may be 
attended with many imperfections, is incompatible 
with any thing grossly criminal." This disposi- 
tion, he proceeds to observe, " is the happiest 
foundation on which the superstructure of perfect 
Virtue can be built." But, unhappily, this consti- 
tutional temperament is often so intense as to 
become dangerous ,• and has not unfrequently 
proved fatal to its possessor. The man of dull 



i 



I 



19 

moral perceptions, and of coarse moral constitu- 
tion, on the contrary, is most easily susceptible oi" 
those practical habits which, in the end, undoubt- 
edly lead to Virtue — that is, to virtuous exertion. 
Before a man thus constiuted, has ever " gone 
over the theory of Virtue in his mind," before his 
passive impressions have acquired strength, his 
active principles or habits of practical exertion, 
have been confirmed. (/i) The passive impressions 
of such a person, are perhaps always weak, if not 
coarse and common ; they are not likely, there- 
fore, to acquire any influence, and can conse- 
quently form no obstacle to the attainment of those 
active habits which are perhaps the stronger for 
the want of this original bias of the mind. This 
bias invariably disposes the mind to theoretical or 
speculative virtue, and can be overcome only by 
an early initiation into habits of a practical ten- 
dency. But, even then, it occasionally gets the 
better of those habits, and not unfequently mate- 
rially affects the happiness of the person who may 
yet appear to be absorbed in the traffic of the 
world. " Going over the theory of Virtue in the 
mind," says Bishop Butler, " is so far from im- 
plying a habit of it in him who thus imploys him- 
self, that it may harden the mind in a contrary 
course, and render it gradually more insensible, 
that is, form a habit of insensibility to all moral 
considerations."(^) Experience and observation 
verify the truth of this remark. Passive habits, 
like all others, become the stronger from indul- 
gence ; and thus it is that " going over the theory 
of virtue in the mind," tends to produce a habit of 
passive exertion, if we may be allowed the ex- 
pression, which opposes a fatal barrier to the for- 



20 

mation of active principles. The man whose 
active principles have been confirmed by a long 
and rigid course of practical exertion, is generally 
lost to that delicate perception of moral beauty 
which lights up and pervades the being of the man 
who has been in the habit of contemplating Virtue 
in her abstract or ideal form. The latter may be 
said to " accommodate the shows of things to the 
desires of the mind ;" whereas the former brings 
down those desires to the realities of things. There 
is, moreover, an intense though melancholy grati- 
fication in the indulgence of the former, while, at 
the same time, it flatters perhaps the canity of our 
human nature. It is thereby one of those se- 
ductive habits which require, in order to be over- 
come, or at least, subdued in part, a degree of 
resolution which very few are found to possess — 
and least of all the man who indulges in the habit. 
The man who is in the practical habit of relieving 
distress, is less affected by the sight of it than the 
man who has been in the habit merely of going 
over the theory of Benevolence in his mind. The 
former has acquired an aptness and dexterity in 
affording relief, to which the latter is a stranger, 
and yet he may be deficient in that deep and gen- 
uine sensibility which affects the man of passive 
habits even when the object of that sensibility is 
not immediately present to him. The former, not- 
withstanding, appears to the generality of persons 
to be possessed of those qualities in the very absence 
of which consists his virtue. But the mere ab- 
sence of active principles, where passive impres- 
sions are perfect, cannot be charged upon a man 
as vicious — although as we have said before, there 
can be but little positive virtue were these are 



21 

wanting. The only charge is, that, with these vir- 
tuous impressions, vicious habits are not unfre- 
quently combined. Vice, not being an object of 
natural desire, the mind cannot be supposed to 
form to itself a theory of it, and of " going over 
that theory" for its own sake, so as to form a 
passive habit of vicious indulgence. Were this 
the case, the mind would be satisfied with the 
mere theory ; and virtuous habits would perhaps 
necessarily result. For the more we contemplate 
in theory the deformity of Vice, the more struck 
we should be with the beauty of the contrast 
which Virtue affords to it — Mr. Pope's opinion to 
the contrary notwithstanding.(^) The man of virtu- 
ous passive impressions, we say, is often charged 
with being guilty of actions, perhaps a series of 
actions, that are esteemed vicious in the eyes of 
the world. A person of this description however, 
it should be remembered, is deprived of that 
moral experience (as is implied in the notion of 
mere passive impressions) which affords to Rea- 
son the matter whence that faculty makes its in- 
ductions, which are no other than those general 
rules and maxims in Morals, which serve to guide 
and direct our conduct in cases in which the ni- 
cest casuistry would fail perhaps to furnish us with 
moral hght. These general rules, whether of na- 
ture, or of positive law, or whether of morals, are 
those inductions which Reason makes from Expe- 
rience. Experience offers to the consideration of 
Reason, that various and compounded knowledge 
which it has gathered from its intercourse with 
the world. And Reason, in its turn, proceeds to 
adjust, as it were, the relative value and compar- 
tive importance of this knowledge so obtained—- 



22 

and accordingly draws its inferences, and makes 
its inductions. Which process, when compleated, 
presents us with a set of Rules that frequently 
possess the precision and are susceptible of the 
demonstrative evidence of mathematical proposi- 
tions — unalloyed at the same time, by any admix- 
ture of that extraneous matter which enters into 
the composition of strict positive law. These gen- 
eral rules presuppose the antecedent knowledge 
of many particular cases of human conduct ; they 
never therefore, suggest themselves to the mind 
whose passive impressions imply habits ofcom- 
parative seclusion and retirement from the busy 
scenes of active life. A mind under the influ- 
ence of these habits, has, consequently, little or 
no moral experience ; and is therefore, by further 
consequence, unprovided with any practical 
guides to virtuous conduct. Active principles im- 
ply nothing more than principles put into action, 
or practical conduct of any kind. These princi- 
ples, further, may be said only to illustrate the 
force of habit, and not the sense of duty. It is of 
little moment whether these principles be employ- 
ed in efTecting positive good to others, or in pre- 
serving such a tenor of conduct as merely results 
in the absence of ill to ourselves. But the man 
whose moral constitution is made up of mere pas- 
sive impressions, in whom the elements of good 
remain unwrought into any system of practical con- 
duct, is very apt, if occasionally forced into colli- 
sion with the rough habits of the world, to perceive 
the want of those practical principles which he is 
made to feel lie at the bottom and form the basis 
of the conduct of those around him. Such a 
person, therefore, is easily misunderstood — he him- 



23 

self, perhaps, feels that his intentions at least are 
misconstrued — he conceives immediate disgust, 
and proceeds to wreak, as it were, this feeling of of- 
fended Virtue in an opposite course of conduct from 
the one he at first attempted to pursue, but which 
he finds, as he thinks, is impracticable — inasmuch 
as it has given offence, and has been misinter- 
preted. It is impossible to calculate the measure 
of ill which almost necessarily results from this 
forced reaction of feelings that are in themselves vir- 
tuous and intensely vivid — but which have been re- 
pulsed, sometimes with coldness but oftener with 
indignity, in their first timid yet open and gene- 
rous advances to the world. It is certainly a 
melancholy mode of retaliating the wrongs we may 
have received from others, by rushing upon the 
commission of wrong to ourselves ; and of redress- 
ing the feelings of our injured virtue, by subject- 
ing those feelings to situations in which their sus- 
ceptibility can expect only to receive further 
injury. There is no feeling of our nature so liable 
to be wounded as that of conscious virtue. Of- 
fended Pride may be conciliated — offended Vanity 
may be cajoled — even offended Honour may be 
appeased — but offended Virtue admits of no atone- 
ment. If wounded, it pines like the melancholy 
Eagle, and so dies — no sound escapes— a look of 
ineffable contempt is all that tells the wretch who 
gave the blow, how insignificant he is. This Vir- 
tue, however, is by no means so secure and inde- 
pendent of fortune, and of the caprice and igno- 
rance of those we live with, as many have sup- 
posed it to be. It is, undoubtedly, its own and 
sole reward in the end, but still it is dependent for 
a temporary satisfaction upon the reception it may 



24 

meet with from the world. But, unhappily for 
that satisfaction, this reception is generally such 
as to displease and disappoint, to rebuke and to 
rebuff, — melancholy and chagrin, united at first 
with something of resentment, is the almost neces- 
sary consequence. And it is as impossible to an- 
swer for the conduct of the man whose mind is 
under the combined influence of these powerful 
and subduing emotions, as it is "impossible to 
answer for the conduct of the man who is without 
a home.'''' This seems to be the only solution of the 
difficulty of supposing a naturally virtuous mind re- 
taining to the last, the impressions and the forms, the 
emblems and the inspirations of virtue, yet yielding 
with a facile flexibility to the seductive allure- 
ments and temptations of vice. There is, perhaps, 
another circumstance to be considered in cases of 
this sort, because it tends in a considerable degree 
to account for, and, at the same time, to excuse, or 
at least to palliate the inconsistency we have been 
supposing. It is admitted, we believe, that the 
capacity for good and evil, for happiness and mi- 
sery, is greater and more powerful in a mind of 
acute sensibility, than in one of a contrary temper- 
ament. The temperament of that mind whose 
powers are in the degree which constitutes genius, 
is one morbidly predisposed to intense emotion. 
Such a mind is possessed of an appetite for pro- 
found feeling, a yearning after those situations of 
the heart which involve directly and decisively its 
nearest and its dearest interests ; and which pre- 
sent the alternatives of life and death, as it were, 
to its immediate option. The moral cravings of a 
mind of this cast must be satisfied ; it feeds no 
doubt on bitter fruits, but these in time become 



25 

to be its nutriment. And, like the Pontic King 
whose daily food consisted of poisonous herbs, a 
mind thus constituted will not only convert the 
most wholesome food into actual poison, but will 
in turn subsist upon it. This morbid temperament 
of mind, we say, is not easily administered to ; 
while, at the same time, it is forever reaching after 
extremes in feeling and situation. And, like a 
moral Procrustes, it proceeds always to adjust 
these extremes by a forced action, whereby they 
are accommodated to its desires and suited to its 
dimensions. These extremes in feeling and situa- 
tion arc not to be found in ordinary life ; least of 
all are they objects of desire to a mind that has 
been sobered down by habits of practical exer- 
tion. The man of morbid temperament therefore, 
must either feign or create them for himself. He 
does in fact both the one and the other — as is im- 
plied, first, in the force of his passive impressions, 
and next, in the rejection as it were, of those im- 
pressions when they were attempted to be sub- 
mitted in practice to the world. We say, he both 
feigns and creates these fatal extremes — first, he 
feigns them, when previous to the confirmation of 
his passive impressions these extremes may be 
said to figure in the imagination as mere fictions of 
feeling, but fictions at the same time which, like 
those of Imaginary History, " accommodate the 
shows of things to the desires of the mind." — And 
next, he creates them, when, after the formation 
of his Active Principles, having made an effort, of 
which he is seldom conscious, to put these princi- 
ples into practice, but finding to his cost that their 
tendency is not practical, he sets about to retahate 
the injustice which he conceives himself to have 

4 



26 

sustained in the rejection of these principles by 
the practical part of the world, the only portion of 
it to which they can prove offensive. We repeat, he 
creates these extremes when he sets about to re- 
taliate the injustice he conceives himself to have 
sustained, because this retaliation can be effected 
only in one way — not in requiting Society for the 
evil it has done him with good to that Society, but 
with evil to himself This, as we have said before, 
is no doubt a melancholy mode of retaliation ;(/) 
and " sweet revenge grows bitter" in the end. 
But still it is sweet, while obtaining, and even for 
some time after it is obtained, to the person who 
conceives himself injured and who theretbre seeks 
and desires it. Thus is the man of morbid consti- 
tution abandoned to the wing of fiery instincts 
which hurry him into excesses that seem to com- 
pensate by their intensity for the want of that more 
rational thougli somewhat dull and uniform enjoy- 
ment that would have resulted from the early and 
steady exercise of the Active Principles of our 
nature. Although in a case of this kind the party 
who suffers most is undoubtedly the Individual, 
yet, as we have said before. Society is also a suf- 
ferer in its moral interests, and to a greater degree 
perhaps than, is generally supposed. It may be 
objected to this theory that it is too abstract; 
perhaps it is, we know not however whether it be 
wholly so. The chief admission we take for 
granted — that the constitution of certain minds is 
precisely such as we have been supposing. The 
main argument which ensues from this admission 
as to the effects resulting from such a constitution 
of mind, may have been carried too far — this how- 
ever remains to be shown. It maybe retorted upon 



27 

us, if a man bring with him into Society fantastic 
and far-fetched notions upon points of vital interest 
to that Society, if he presume to set up a standard of 
his own as the sok^ and ultimate criterion of right 
and wrong and the infallible test of the moral 
worth of those around him, is it either strange or 
unjust that Society should reject such notions and 
lalong with them the person himself whose conduct 
is perhaps but a bad illustration of a worse theory ? 
This however, would be to suppose what never 
yet has happened nor can happen. No man we 
apprehend, was ever guilty of the preposterous 
error of believing himself capable of making a 
convert of Society to his own individual notions of 
any kind. On the contrary, what perhaps inspires 
his disgust and gives him offence is the discovery 
that Society is not only disposed and even pre- 
pared to make a convert of him even to " the bitter 
better," but that it is apt to resort to violent mea- 
sures in the attempt and to redonble that violence 
where the attempt ha« iailed. The language which 
Society addresses to him is neither calculated to 
convince his Reason nor to conciliate his Pride — 
it is this — " your ways are bad — mend them or you 
shall suffer for them." We endeavoured upon a 
former occasion, to point out the difference be- 
tween the imaginative and all otlier minds.(m) We 
attempted to show that the tendencies of the poeti- 
cal mind were less practical than those of any 
other. The poetical mind is of a temperament 
morbidly pre-disposed. A morbidly pre-disposed 
mind is one generally addicted to those extremes 
in feeling and situation which commonly result in 
that moral emasculation which incapacitates the 
individual for pursuing those practical ends the 



28 

proper efforts at attaining which Society pre-sup- 
poses in its very formation — and in the actual at- 
tainment of which its well-being is involved. The 
individual thus incapacitated for the practical 
purposes of Society is scarcely recognized as one 
of its members — he is in a great measure discon- 
nected with the Social Contract — his interests .are, 
of course not involved in the general interest — nor 
are they the interests of those immediately around 
him — he has therefore comparatively nothing at 
stake. What life-guards of conduct can such an 
individual be supposed to possess ? And it is in a 
case of this kind and in all similar cases that the 
strength of passive impressions is so destructive of 
moral Virtue. Passive impressions thus confirmed 
incapacitate the individual for the practical ends 
of Society, while Society turns its back upon him 
for not pursuing these ends. The moment he is 
found holding himself aloof from Society, Society 
conceives a doubt of his character — and " once to 
be in doubt is once to be rpsolvpd, and on the 
proof" — which Society is very ingenious in furnish- 
ing "no more but this," — he is banished by sentence 
of a moral ostracism. The man who has thus 
become a sentimental outlaw, who has been thus 
ejected beyond the pale of the moral virtues, is 
" let down the wind to prey at fortune ;" and if he 
becomes by consequence addicted to extremes and 
excesses of conduct, is it at all to be wondered 
at ?(ji) The application of these remarks to the 
life and character of Lord Byron will be acknow- 
ledged we apprehend upon mature reflection. 
We trust too, that their tendency to point out and 
to maintain that moral balance which may be said 
to subsist between Society and its Members— be- 



29 

tween the institutions of Society on the one hand, 
and the moral failings and at the same time the 
moral accountability of its Members on the other, 
will also be admitted. We are induced to believe 
therefore that, in the application of these remarks 
to the character of Lord Byron, the ingenuous 
Reader who may be imbued with a love of Genius 
even to a forgiveness of its frailties, will have per- 
ceived the extenuation which we trust they carry 
with them of the moral failings of one who com- 
bined in an extraordinary degree tliat genius with 
those frailties. What remains to be said of the 
Writings of Lord Byron, (and who can touch upon 
his character, without at least a passing tribute to hir< 
genius?) will have, we are aware, but little of novel- 
ty to recommend it. For upwards of thirteen years 
he has been continually before the public the most 
distinguished and successful candidate for literary 
fame. It would have been extraordinary there- 
fore if his merits as a Poet had not been repeatedly 
and thoroughly investigated. But while all have 
united in admiring his Genius, few perhaps com- 
paratively are familiar with its more interesting 
and profounder traits or possessed of that thorough 
acquaintance with his writings which must always 
generate a deeper love for them and secure to 
them, if we mistake not, the applause of other 
minds in other times. From a few general remarks 
upon the nature and the tendency of Poetical Com- 
position, we will pass therefore to a brief consi- 
deration of those extraordinary Productions which 
have delighted and astonished the age, and which 
compose a body of the most singular and original 
Poetry perhaps in the language. The distinction 
which obtains, according to the elder Schelgel. 



30 

between the ancient and modern or classical and 
romantic Drama, may be applied to modern Poetry 
in general as distinguished from that of the an- 
cients. The poetry of the latter was the poetry 
of the Imagination, but the Moderns may be said to 
have invented and to have appropriated to them- 
selves the poetry of the Passions. With regard 
to the nature and the tendency of poetry, the sub- 
ject has been so repeatedly handled that we feel 
great reluctance in entering upon it here. Lord 
Bacon's celebrated remark in relation to poetry, 
that it seeks to " accommodate the shows of things 
to the desires of the mind," appears to us to explain 
in a few words its nature and its tendency. The 
Sage applied this observation, as is well known, to 
" imaginary History" or Fiction. Under this general 
head however are included a great many works 
which are at the same time widely different in 
themselves — and comparatively wanting in that 
deeper interest and those more passionate and 
universal associations which characterise the 
higher productions of the poet. It is perhaps not 
unworthy of remark that while Lord Bacon with 
a depth of feeling and a spirit of philosophy rarely 
combined, has afforded to the mind in a few words 
perhaps the deepest insight it can acquire into the 
true nature and tendency of poetry, he should at 
the same time have been so far misled by general 
terms and the ideas commonly annexed to them 
as to have comfounded it with " imaginary Histo- 
ry" or Fiction. Were we to overlook fact and 
to regard the history of Robinson Crusoe as a fic- 
tion, it is one of those fictions which to a certain 
degree " accommodate the shows of things to the 
desires of the mind" — and yet it is not poetry. 



31 

The Arabian Nights are a series of beautiful fic- 
tions, and as such, as mere "imaginary history 
they accommodate the shows of things to the de- 
sires of the mind" — while at the same time they do 
not constitute a body of poetry — which notwith- 
standing, is capable of effecting nothing beyond a 
similar accommodation. The higher kinds of poet- 
ry, whether Epic or Dramatic, cannot when phi- 
losophically considered be termed fictions, al- 
though their whole merit will be found to resolve 
itself into this very accommodation which they af- 
ford of "the shows of things to the desires of the 
mind." This may appear contradictory, but we 
should be sorry if it did not admit of an explana- 
tion sufficiently satisfactory. The tragic Drama 
and all poetry of the higher class, have their foun- 
dation in those deeper passions of which human 
nature is essentially compounded — which are the 
immediate and inexhaustible source of all its hopes 
and affections, in short of its happiness and mise- 
ry. The associations which belong to these pas- 
sions are universal, and, though slightly modified 
in a few instances, are upon the whole every where 
the same. If these passions be admitted to enter 
into the composition of all poetry properly con- 
sidered, and in fact to constitute the basis of all 
the more serious creations of the Muse, the distinc- 
tion between poetry and mere imaginary history 
and the reason why the one should atchieve and 
affect more and rank infinitely higher than the 
other, will appear we think sufficiently obvious. 
They both "accommodate the shows of things to 
the desires of the mind," but this accommodation is 
widely different in the one case from what it is in 
the otlier. In the first place, mere fiction or im- 



32 

aginary history addresses itself to the fancy and 
to the fancy alone. ^^ hereas poetry, such as we 
have been considering it, appeals to a deeper and 
more universal source of emotion — the heart, 
which it has been well observed "judges more 
nicely than the imagination." There are certain- 
ly many poems which address themselves rather 
to the tancy than the feelings and some that ap- 
peal exclusively to the fancy, but they are for that 
very reason the less interesting and we cannot but 
think inferior to those works which either blend 
the creations of the fancy with the emotions of pas- 
sion, or which turn upon some event that in con- 
nection with human character attaches and rivits 
human sympathy. Hamlet and Othello we appre- 
hend to be greater efforts of genius than the Or- 
lando or the Fairy Queen ; and in point of human 
interest no one will deny that they are infinitely 
superiour. The merit of the latter poems, as works 
of imagination replete with the beauties of fancy 
and the energies of thought, remains undeminish- 
ed at the same time. The cold abstractions of 
Lycidas and Comus fatigue and deaden on the 
attention. There is a brilliant but frigid vein of 
imagination pervading these poems which reminds 
us of those beautiful masses of Frostwork which 
attract the eye while they repel the approach. We 
do not know that wp could select a more striking 
instance in order to prove that the works which 
most truly and forcibly "accommodate the shows of 
things to the desires of the mind" are not those the 
most replete with the " airy nothings" of the im- 
agination, than the Masque of Comus. Dr. Johnson 
tells us that it was founded upon some events 
wliich actually occurred in the family of the Earl 



33 

Bridge water, with whom Milton was personally 
acquainted. And what was the nature of these 
events? Precisely such as a Young Gentleman of 
spirit would esteem most fortunate as affording 
him an opportunity for the display of his gallantry. 
If there be any accommodation, such as Bacon 
speaks of, to be met with in this poem, it is but 
limited, and at best, of an inferiour kind. And 
herein it is, that the distinction obtains between 
poetry properly considered, and mere fiction or 
imaginary history — that although, as we have just 
remarked, they both aim at " accommodating the 
shows of tilings to the desire of the mind," yet that 
there is so wide a difference in the degree and 
manner in which this accommodation is afforded 
in the one from what it is in the other, that to com- 
pare poetry with fiction or imaginary history, un- 
derstanding these terms as we have endeavoured 
to explain them, would be to compare two things 
almost totally dissimilar. The Geometer partici- 
pates with the Poet in that quality which is com- 
monly regarded as peculiarly characteristic of the 
the latter. Imagination — but no one at the same 
time, we apprehend, would think of comparing 
the two minds on that account. It is in the force 
of this "accommodation of the shows of things to the 
desires of the mind," that the merit of all poetry 
consists, in a greater or lesser degree, according 
to circumstances. We cannot expect this accom- 
modation in all its fullness, in a poem like the 
Paradise Lost, or in any poem that is not replete 
with human agency. Even in such poems howev- 
er, this accommodation is effected to a certain de- 
gree. That it should not be so complete as it is 
in the Drama, is in no way surprising when we 

5 



34 

come to reflect that its fullness and perfection de- 
pend upon the agency of passions and affections, 
which are almost wholy excluded from such po- 
ems. The very little of human agency employed 
in the Paradise Lost, is incapable of affording this 
accommodation beyond a very slight degree, from 
the circumstance of this agency, inconsiderable as 
it is, being of the most simple and uninteresting 
kind. What interest can the mind possibly take 
in two such amiable and inoffensive mortals as 
Adam and Eve ? Or at least, is there any portion 
of that passionate and dramatic interest infused 
into the mind by the contemptible uxoriousness of 
the one, or the equally contemptible vanity of the 
other, which invests the character and fortunes 
of those "Beings of the mind," who live and are 
destined to live forever in the cherishing love and 
devotion of the heart ? We repeat, that the " ac- 
commodation of the shows of things to the desires 
of the mind," can never be as full and perfect as 
when it is afforded through the medium of human 
passions and affections giving rise to, and after- 
wards confirming human character.(o) If this be ad- 
mitted as incontrovertible, it will not be difficult to 
account for the very extraordinary impression which 
the- poetry of Lord Byron is known to have pro- 
duced upon the public mind. Many critics have 
been disposed to attribute a portion of that effect 
to the universal sympathy which seems to have 
been consecrated to his melancholy fortunes. 
That there should have been a degree of personal 
interest attaching to all and every thing the most 
remotely connected with the history and charac- 
ter of so impassioned, so elevated, and so eloquent 
a Being, was not perhaps to be wondered at ; nor 



35 

was it by any means discreditable either to the 
heads or hearts of those who entertained the feel- 
ing divested of the levity of the weak, and the cal- 
culating curiosity of the malignant. Butthat the par- 
tial decline of this feeling (for we cannot think that 
it is destined wholy to pass away, as long as the heart 
retains the sympathies of its better nature) with the 
death of the extraordinary Individual in whom it was 
centred, will be in the slightest degree calculated, 
as it has been contended, to lessen the popularity 
of his works, or to weaken the force of that more 
mysterious attraction which weds them to the 
heart, is what we are by no means prepared to ad- 
mit. On the contrary, if there be a mournful love 
which bends us to the dead, if there be a feeling 
of deep and eternal regret connected with the me- 
mory of what they were, and were perhaps to us — 
and if there live within the heart a strong and bit- 
ter sense of indignation at the wrongs they may have 
suffered — and a silent sleepless sorrow which em- 
balms in its tears the recollection of their misfor- 
tunes — and if there survive those whom we loved, 
the offspring whom they loved, in whose pale and 
bereaved countenances we trace the living fea- 
tures of those who have ceased to live — and if we 
are forever listening from their lips the tale of all 
they thought and felt, and loved and suffered — 
their days and nights of anguish — the faithless 
hope — the blighted love — the pride bowed and 
wounded—the calumny which hoarded its venom 
like the Adder to poison truth and wither happi- 
ness — in short, the utter distitution of feelings with- 
out a hope to soothe or an object to confide in — if 
these be the ties which bound us to the living, and 
such the interest which their hves inspired, we can- 



36 

not but think that both these ties and this interest, 
po far from loosing, are hkely to acquire addition- 
al force when death has torn the object from our 
hearts, and the grave has closed forever between 
Eternity and Time. Such are the feelings inspir- 
ed by the writings of Lord Byron, and such are 
the feelings, we apprehend, w hich they are des- 
tined to inspire in the minds of the posterity of a 
thousand centuries. Who can believe for a mo- 
ment, that time or circumstance will ever have 
any effect in lessening the surpassing splendours 
of Childe Harold ? We know not whether there 
be any poetry in any language, which so wonder- 
fully combines the Sublime w itli the Beautiful — the 
Awful and the Grand w ith the Tender and Pathe- 
tic, as that w hich burns and breathes in^very page 
of that splendid production — without a parallel in 
modern Poetry. For where shall we look for a 
similar union of the terrible graces of poetry with 
its softer and more conciliating features? Where 
shall we lind the immortal Genius of classic Anti- 
quity worshiped with such fervour of devotion, or 
celebrated with such eloquence of language and 
such energy of thought, as characterize the de- 
scriptions of the Apollo, the Laocoon, and the Dy- 
ing Gladiator.'* Where shall we find the form and 
face of nature depicted with such " traits of truth," 
as in the description of Evening on the shores of 
Lake Leman in the III, and of Sunset on the banks 
of the Brenta in the IV, Canto of the Pilgrimage ? 
It is hardly possible to say that the one description 
excells the other — but the former is so true to na- 
ture, and to that deep and ineffable feeling which 
the heart imbibes from being continually in her 
presence, that we think we shall be pardoned for 



37 

quoting it here, familiar as it we presume it must 
be to most of our readers. Standing upon the 
banks of the Lake after Sunset, the congenial 
mind of the melancholy Childe is thus led to com- 
mune with the Spirit of the place; 

It is the hush of night, and all between 

Thy margin and the mountain's dusk, yet clear, 
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 

Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear 

Precipitously steep ; and drawing near. 
There breathes a livinfc fragrance from the shore, 

Ofjlowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good nigh carol more. 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 

His life an infancy, andsyjgs his fill ; 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes, 

Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 

There seems a floating whisper on the hill, 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 

All silently their tears of love instil. 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 

The above Stanzas are the overflowing of a mind 
familiar beyond example with the delightful mys- 
teries of solitude, and imbued with a deep and 
ineflfable love of its endearing sights and sounds. 
They afford a striking refutation of Lord Byron'tf 
own remark in relation to descriptive poetry, that 
" it is the lowest branch of the art." There are 
four lines succeeding this exquisite description, 
which are more beautifully illustrative of Mr. 
Campbell's profound remark in relation to the ge- 
nius of Shakespear, that "his mutability., like the 
precauriousness of human lilie, often deepens the 



3» 

impressions which he creates," than any thing we 
know of in all poetry — unless it be that of the 
great Bard himself to whom the remark original- 
ly applied. The lines to which we allude, Ibrm 
the commencement of the XCVIII. Stanza of the 
same Canto (III.) 

The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, 
/^ And living as if earth contain'd no tomb ! 

The idea in the last line is at once sublime and 
/iafFecting. The thought at the same time is alto- 
gether original, though it may hot appear so at 
first. It has no analogy whatever to the common 
place remark that thq, generality of men live as 
though they forgot they were to die. It is a beau- 
tiful and pathetic comment upon the want of sym- 
pathy between the moral and the natural world — 
or rather the total want of feeling which the latter 
evinces in the fortunes of the former — and the cold 
majestic indifference with which she looks down 
upon all that either gladdens or afflicts the heart. 
Man, by the inscrutable impulses of his being, 
is led to sympathise with the viscissitudes of Na- 
ture. He rejoices with the Spring, saddens with 
the Autumn, and sorrows with the Winter of the 
year. But Nature holds her course aloof from the 
concerns of man, uninfluenced by his " petty griefs 
and evils of a day" — and even at the moment 
when his heart is bursting over its bereavements. 
She comes forth 

With breath all incense, and witl) cheeks all bloom. 
And living as if earth contained no tomb ! 



39 

But incomparably the finest perhaps of those sub- 
lime descriptions of Nature and of Art with which 
the Pilgrimage abounds, is that of the celebrated 
Falls of the Vehno. It is perhaps the sublimest 
description of a natural object, that ever kindled 
into words. The concluding Stanza we have often 
regarded as in a remarkable degree applicable to 
the character of the whole Poem itself. It is more 
finely and justly descriptive of those alternations 
of gloom and of gladness, of hope and despair, and 
of that struggle so conspicious throughout, and so 
fearfully sustained between the darker suggestions 
and the better feelings of a great and noble nature, 
than the most laboured exposition of it could possi- 
bly be. 

Horrribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge. 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 

Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn ; 
Resembling 'mid the torture of the scene, ^ 

Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

The impression made upon the mind, and the 
image of grandeur and of power presented to it in I 
this wonderful description, are likely however to \ 
give place to other and more affecting feelings 
forced upon us in certain succeeding Stanzas of 
the same Canto. If there be any one thing in 
this Canto, not finer, but more touching and more 
terrible than another, and which is perhaps alone 
sufficient to rank it infinitely beyond the others, it 
is the awful and appalling Imprecation which an 



40 

injured and indignant Mortal, standing in the Grove 
of the Furies, and under the terrible inspirations 
of the place, invokes upon the heads of those w ho 

From mighty wrong's to petty perfidy, 

had exhausted the vile ingenuity of their natures 
in attempts at poisoning his peace and throwing a 
moral gloom around his fame. The Critic vrho 
will undertake to tell us that the instances of sub- 
lime description to which we have alluded, are in 
the smallest degree indebted for any portion of 
their intrinsic effect to that sympathy which the 
well known fortunes of the noble writer were emi- 
minently calculated to inspire, may indeed advance 
a plausible opinion, but it will be at the expense of 
his judgment. To tell us further, that the conse- 
quence of the Poet's having infused so much of his 
own character into all that he has written will be, 
that when this character shall have ceased to in- 
spire a living interest, (as in the course of time it 
must do, when the writer shall have shared the com- 
mon lot of mortality) that much of the merit of his 
writings, dependent as it was upon this personal sym- 
pathy, will be lost, or will at least fail of a portion of 
its original effect, is to assume a position which, as 
we have before remarked, is warranted neither by 
philosophy, nor a correct knowledge of human 
nature. For, in the first place, we deny, upon the 
ground of those sympathies which are deeply and 
immutably seated in the nature of man, that this 
principle of Self which may be said to pervade the 
writings of Lord Byron, can ever cease wholly to 
operate even upon the minds of those who shall 
remain forever ignorant of what were either his 



41 

errors or his misfortunes. It will be of little im- 
portance for them to know where the noble sufferer 
was born, 

To whom related or by whom begot ; /^ 

What were the nature of the wrongs he bore, or 
what manner they were inflicted ; it will be suffi- 
cient for them to know that he was a sufferer, and 
had wrongs to be forgiven — 

Hopes sapped — name blighted — life's life lied away. / 

It will be enough for them to feel and know this,, 
in order to sympathise profoundly with those emo- 
tions of the soul which have thrown a melancholy > 
gloom around the sublimest inspirations of the 
Bard. And in the next place, even admitting that 
this personal interest should be lost upon the minds 
of another generation, yet will the passions and 
the principles which pervade his writings remain 
the same. For these principles and these passion^ 
are essentially those of human nature — but human 
nature elevated to that standard which is at once 
the limit and the test of poetical invention. Mr. 
Campbell has very justly remarked of poetry, that 
it " has a right to the highest possible virtues of 
human character." It has an equal right, we ap- 
prehend, to the highest possible vices of character. 
Probability and Possibility however, are very dif- 
ferent degrees of contingency ; and it will be seen 
that Mr. Campbell, a Poet himself, and the most 
enlightened of Critics, assigns an almost impalpable 
limit to the Poet's conceptions of human nature, 
when he gives them the boundless range of possi- 
bility. But who will undertake to say that he is 
wrong } Wha will attempt to fathom the depths of 
Space, or ascertain its hmits } But^it may be said, 

6 



42 

we give up our old position, that the merit of poet- 
ical invention is to be tested according to its ap- 
proach to or departure from this standard of pro- 
bability, or possibihty if you please, and assume 
another, vt^hich cannot be objected to because it is 
perfectly natural. It is perfectly natural that we 
should like that which is agreeable, and dislike 
that which is otherAvise. It is perfectly natural 
that we should estimate that which is accordant to 
our feelings, beyond that which is repugnant to 
them. It is perfectly natural that we should be 
partial to virtuous and averse from vicious charac- 
ters — that we should love virtue and abhor vice. 
'If these be admitted as moral axioms, it will not 
be difficult to account for the general preference 
which mankind have always evinced for those wri- 
tings Avhich inculcate sentiments congenial with 
Virtue, and which present us with characters in 
whose fortunes we can sympathize, because they 
are beings constituted like ourselves, over those 
which do violence to our nature by representing 
it as subject to the basest influences — a wretched 
compound of all that is unprincipled and unfeel- 
ing. The truth of this reasoning however lies 
rather in appearance than in reality. It is not 
true even when applied to actual and every day 
life. The most amiable persons are not always 
the most agreeable ; nor are the most moral always 
the most interesting. The virtues of such persons 
are generally of the negative kind ; and even 
where they are of a positive nature, they are still 
of the simple and familiar class— and XVill com- 
monly be found to consist in the very absence of 
those qualities which impart to higher characters 
the interest and as frequently the love which they 



43 

inspire. We do not design by these remarks any 
disparagement to the gentler Virtues and Cliarities 
of life. On the contrary, no one can respect them 
more sincerely than ourselves, when they are under 
the direction of a liberal and enlightened mind. 
All that we mean to say is, that these Virtues are 
not of that high and impassioned nature which 
confers upon character a marked individuality — 
and that we would not unwillingly forego a .por- 
tion of the former, for a little of the inspiration of 
the latter. If this be admitted in relation to actual 
life, how much more true is it in reference to 
poetry, which aims at " accommodating the shows 
of things to the desires of the mind,'*" These 
desires, at the same time, are far from being as 
humble and as limited as in many cases tl^y are 
supposed to be. Of this " every man," asJBurke 
would say, " ought to be the best judge in his own 
forum" — but the fact seems to be that every man 
is not capable of tracing the sources of his own 
emotions, or of analysing these emotions when felt. 
The gratification which we receive from represen- 
tations of life and character as surrounded by 
circumstances and assailed by events the most 
afflicting, is by no means the immediate result of 
such representations in themselves ; but may be 
accounted for in the circumstance of their appeal- 
ing to those sympathies of our nature which delight 
in, or rather subsist upon intense emotion — in 
short, from the accommodation which they afford 
•' of the shows of things to the desires of the mind." 
The stronger the impression made the more per- 
manent it becomes, and there is always a call for 
such appeals to our sympathies. It is these chiefly 
which sustain existence, and render us sensibly 



44 

alive to ft. There is a natural propensity in our 
natures to awaken and indulge in strong sensation 
— an appetite for intense feeling, more general 
perhaps than we are either aware of, or willing to 
allow. Nor is this very extraordinary. Upon at- 
tending to the nature of our own emotions, it will 
be found that there is a character in suffering which 
absorbs the mental energies to an intensity that 
rewards itself. This holds true at least of those 
representations of suffering which, while they do 
not present us with pictures drawn too nearly to 
the life, or marked by circumstances at which the 
mind revolts, afford a soothing melancholy exer- 
cise to the powers of our moral being.(^) 



) 



All suffering doth destroy or is destroyed 
Even by tlie sufferer. 



'Down right agony, like darkness, although it be 
characterized by traits of great sublimity, is too 
strong a privation to be sought after by the mind ; 
there is nothing sufficiently definite in it to afford 
repose or relaxation to the feelings. While those 
exhibitions, and the sensations arising from them 
of pain, that are tempered by certain alleviating 
circumstances, are in the highest degree pro- 
ductive of that moral enthusiasm which is at once 
the distinction and the privilege of our nature. 
They may be said to resemble that dubious Twilight 
which lingers after Sunset, and which is one of the 
most powerful sources of the sublime. Who that 
ever studied the two Faces in that divine produc- 
tion of Romney, representing the Bard of Avon 
nursed by the Tragic and the Comic Muse, but must 
have felt and owned the truth and energy, the 



45 

depth and fulness of expression pourtrayed in the 
countenance of the Tragic Muse, which told that 
her devotions were not of this world, and that her 
aspirations were fixed upon the immensity and 
sublimity of Heaven ? It is upon this ground, upon 
the ground of those passions which are universal 
and eternal, that Lord Byron's claims to the re- 
membrance and admiration of posterity must be 
admitted to rest. He appears to us to stand unri- 
valled and alone in his conception and expression 
of Passion. By passion, we would be understood 
here to mean that peculiar and intense sensibility 
to the impressions of Female beauty, which per- 
vades every page of his writings. The generality 
of Poets, Shakespeare himself not excepted, des- 
cribe Beauty with the cold precision of the Con- 
noisseur in art, who from having his mind early 
chilled and crampt by the formality of a certain 
set of rules and pre-conceived opinions, is most 
sensibly alive to the perception of blemishes, and 
who can see no beauty where there is the slightest 
departure from these rules. Burk distinguishes 
very nicely " between a clear expression and a 
strong expression ;" " these," he observes, " are 
frequently confounded with each other, though they 
are in reality extremely different — the former re- 
gards the understanding — the latter belongs to 
the passions — the one describes a thing as it is, the 
other as it is felt." Precisely such, we appre- 
hend, is the distinction which obtains between the 
genius of the Poet and the Artist. The latter 
feels, the former understands — the one admires, 
the other loves that which is beautiful. The 
beauty of expression is rarely admitted by the Art- 
ist, while it carries a deep and ineffable feeling to 



46 

the heart of the Poet. To the latter, there are a 
thousand associations gathering around a beau- 
tiful object, which affect, independent of its beauty. 
The Artist sees nothing beyond the mere dead let- 
ter^ as it were, of visual or physical beauty. It 
would be almost endless ib quote from the writings 
of Lord Byron, passages illustrative of that deep 
feeling for the beautiful and passionate, which was 
perhaps the characteristic of his wonderful mind. 
But we cannot refrain from citing two instances, 
one from the Corsair, and the other from Parasina, 
which have always appeared to us to carry the 
most powerful and affecting appeal to the sympa- 
thy and sensibility of the reader. Describing the 
grief of Medora in the parting scene between 
Conrad and herself, the Poet has presented us 
with the most passionate and affecting picture of 
that " brokenness of heart" occasioned by the loss 
of those we love, that is to be met with perhaps in 
all poetry — the description of the parting between 
Hector and Andromache cannot compare with it 
in tenderness and pathos, which is all that we 
look for in such descriptions. 

She rose — she sprung— she clung to his embrace, 
Till his heart heaved beneath her hidden face. 
He dared not raise to hjs that deep, blue eye, 
Which downcast droop'd in tearless agony. 
Scarce beat that bosom where his image dwelt. 
So {v\\—that feeling seemed almost unfelt ! • 
Again — again — her form he madly press'd, 
Which mutely clasp'd, imploringly caress'd I 
O'er every feature of that still, pale face, 
Had sorrow fix'djjwhat time can ne'er erase : 
The tender blue of that large loving eye 
Grew frozen with its gaze on vacancy. 
Till — Oh, how far — it caught a glimpse of him, 



47 



And then it flow'd — and phrenszed scem'd to swim 
Thro' those long, dark, and glistening^ lashes dew'd 
With drops of sadness oft to be renew'd. 
" He's gone !" — against her heart that hand is driven, 
Convulsed and quick— then gently raised to heaverj ; 
Shelook'd and saw the heaving of the main - 

The white sale set— she dared not look again — 
But turn'd with sickening soul within the gate, 
" It is no dream— and I am desolate !" 

In the above description, the form, the face, the 
attitude, but above all, the imploring eye of the 
beautiful and forsaken Medora, are pictured to 
the fancy in all the eloquence of truth, and the sad 
reality of life. The other example is to be found 
in Parasina, who is represented after the detection 
of her guilt, as bound and fettered by the side of 
Hugo, her youthful Paramour 

Of that false Son, and daring lover ! 

In expectation of the sentence which an in- 
jured Husband was about to pass upon their guilty 
loves. 

The minion of his father's Bride,^^ 
He too is fettered by her side ; 
Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim 
Less for her own despair than him; 
Those lids o'er which the violet vein, 
Wandering, leaves a tender stain, 
Shining thro' the smoothest white 

That e'er did softest kiss invite — 

Now seem'd with hot and livid glow 
To press, not shade the orbs below ; 
Which glance so heavily, and fill. 

As tear on tear grows gathering still. 

She stood, I said, all pale and still, 

The living cause of Hugo's ill, 

Her eyes unmov'd, but full and wide. 

Not once had tum'd to either side — 

Nor once did those sweet eye-lids close, 



48 

Or shade the glance o'er which they rose, 
But round their orbs of deepest blue, 
The circling white dilated grew — 

And there with glassy gaze she stood 

As ice were in her curdled blood, 
But every now and then a tear 
So large and slowly gather'd slid 

From the dark fringe of that fair lid, 

It was a thing to see, not hear ! 

And they who saw it did surprise. 

Such drops could fallfrom human eyes. 

Words are too weak, we think, to express the 
fuhiess of the feeling conveyed in these lines — but 
we never saw Grief and Passion so deeply, so elo- 
quently blended in any human face, as in that of 
Parasina, young, beautiful, and lost ! One more 
instance occurs to our recollection, in the follow- 
ing Stanza from the First Canto of Don Juan. 
Julia's fondness for Juan, is depicted in a few lines 
which convey the tenderness, the melancholy, and 
the dubiousness of early Passion, with a truth and 
beauty which is without a parallel in Modern Po- 
etry. 

And if she met him, though she smil'd no more, 

She look'd a sadness sweeter than her smile, 
And if her heart had deeper thoughts in store 
She must not own, but cherish'd more the while, 
For that compression in its burning core ; 
Even innocence itself has many a wile, 

And will not dare to trust itself with truth, 

And love is taught hypocrisy from youth. 

There is a deep and plaintive beauty in these 
lines which has always had an inexpressible charm 
for our feelings. That the Being in whose soul 
dwelt such conceptions and such forms of beauty — 



49 

such passionate desires, forever reaching after the 
iinattainahlc and the indefinite, and seeking rehef 
in disappointment by wreaking his whole being 
upon the expression of that disappointment — that 
such a Being should Iiave been unhappy, and even 
incapacitated for the free exercise of the humbler 
duties and practical purposes of life, is only what 
might have been predicated of the peculiar con- 
stitution of his character. Whatever may have 
been the errors of Lord Byron's life, they were 
evidently those of a great and uncontroulable 
Mind. His Heart, we are persuaded, never con- 
ceived one ungenerous thought, or prompted to 
one ignoble action. It was the Mind, the burning 
restless Mind, that o'er informed his feelings. His 
heart appeared to weep over the frailties it never 
gave birth to, and could not controul.* There was 
an eternal action and reaction going on between 
his feelings and his understanding. But, unhap- 
pily for his peace, the latter always maintained the 
ascendency they liad early acquired over the for- 
mer. Setting aside all consideration of the effects 
which are supposed to result from a neglected 
education, and early habits — 

those false links that bind 



At times the loftiest to the meanest mind — 

— we are tempted to think that Lord Byron's ge- 
nius was of that intense and peculiar temperament 
which admits of no other modification than that 
which the gradual confirmation of an original 
and powerful but unhappy bias, is calculated to ef- 
fect. And as there is nothing which acquires 
strength so much from indulgence as that morbid 

7 



sensibility which is peculiar to Genius, there is 
nothing so difficult to oppose — and yet so destruc- 
tive of happiness for the want of disipline. We 
will not permit ourselves to dwell upon the private 
life and conduct of Lord Byron. We will not, 
however we might, anticipate the ever equitable 
verdict of Posterity, or even of the present age, 
when it shall bring itself to sit, dispationately, in 
judgement upon what may have been the moral 
failings of so extraordinary a character — a charac- 
ter so liable to be misunderstood. 'Tis sacred 
ground at best, and peculiarly such at present. 
His awful ashes have not had time to grow cold, 
and his wounded and insulted Spirit scarcely yet 
reposes from the indignities and the afflictions 
Avhich it bore in life. • We may be permitted to re- 
mark however, in relation to the unhappy occur- 
rences of his domestic life, that the many harsh 
judgements which have been passed upon his con- 
duct, argue both a want of feeling and of sense. 
There is something so sacred in the privacy of do- 
mestic life, that, even at this distance of time and 
place, it is with the greatest reluctance that we 
permit ourselves to allude, to the unhappy circum- 
stances which occasioned the seperation of Lord 
Byron from his family ; and which embittered eve- 
ry hour of his short but eventful life. That priva- 
cy however, has been broken in upon and viola- 
ted — and we should be wanting in the deep love 
we entertain for his memory, did we not express 
our unqualified contempt for the base calumnies 
which the vulgar, the unfeeling, and the designing- 
have propagated against his fame ; and which Im- 
pudence, " ever ready to hitch itself into notorie- 
ty," has laboured to perpetuate. We can never 






51 

believe that lie was the criminal Being he is re- 
presented to have been, because no proof, except 
such as has been furnished by those who were his 
avowed and bitter enemies, has been adduced in 
support of the charges which have been preferred 
against his hfe. It is the characteristic of a weak 
mind to misconstrue that which it cannot compre- 
hend, and of a bad heart to visit upon others the 
obloquy which it knows attaches to itself It is 
mortifying and almost discouraging to reflect, how 
much the loftiest mind is at the mercy of the mean- 
est. It is the supreme consolation of Dulness to 
volunteer its strictures upon Genius ; and to ar- 
raign it at the tribunal of its own narrow concep- 
tions and unenlightened humanity, in all the exclu- 
sive inveteracy of ignorance, and in all the despo- 
tism of a partial and bigoted prepossession. We 
cannot disguise the firm connection we have al- 
ways entertained, that Lord Byron was not alone 
responsable for the unhappy rupture which has 
given rise to so many unfeeling and impertinent 
speculations. It rarely happens that one only of 
any two parties to a question, whether at civil or 
at moral law, is convicted of having been so much 
in error as he is represented to have been. This 
may be called a weak argument, but are there any 
fads in existence calculated to refute it } If there 
are not, then the presumption is in favour of the 
innocence of the accused, until his guilt shall have 
been established. The peace and security of do- 
mestic life depend so much upon contingencies 
which it is impossible either to anticipate or to 
avert, that an honourable mind will seldom permit 
itself to form a positive judgment in any case of 
social differences. Without affection and the faith 



. 5^ 

which it inspires, without the most unbounded mu- 
tual confidence among those who are members of 
the same family, the happiness and quiet of the 
domestic circle is liable to momentary and final 
interruption. From all that has transpired, it 
would appear that there reigned but little of this 
spirit of amity in the family of Lord Byron. On 
the contrary, a deliberate system of domestic espi- 
onage seems to have been set on foot, which, what- 
ever may have snggestpd it or been its views, had 
no other effect than that of confirming the errors 
it may have been designed to correct, by offending 
the pride it was by no means calculated to concili- 
ate. Nothing has the effect of wounding so deep- 
ly as the appearance of distrust in those who 
should either love or know us better than to doubt 
us. But — 

^ " ■ ' Constantly lives in realms above. 

The heart is strongly tempered, and will not un- 
frequently wound where it loves most. In the deep 
pathos of the following Stanza from Don Juan, we 
trace what had been the feelings and reflections 
of Lord Byron, upon the memorable and melancho- 
ly occasion to which they evidently have refer- 
ence. 

What e'er had been his worthlessness or worth. 
Poor fellow ! he had many things to wound him 
Let's own, since it can do no good on earth ; 
It was a trying moment that which found him 
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth, 
Where all his house-hold goods lay shiver'd round him I 
Jfo choice was left kis feeling or his pride. 

It is impossible to read these lines without the 
deep and grateful conviction, that the heart from 



53 

which they flowed must have been replete with 
the finest and the noblest feelings. We can well 
imagine the bitter and indignant emotions with 
which such a heart must have regarded the many 
efforts that were made to poison its peace, and the 
unfounded but pointed calumnies which were 
leveled at its fame. We forbear noticing the 
common place and comtemptible charges which, 
among others, have been preferred against the 
character of Lord Byron, of having deserted his 
country, and of having promulgated sentiments 
inimical to virtue, further than to remark, that 
such charges, the poor resort in general of the 
malevolent, afford, in the present instance, strong 
evidence of that littleness of feeling and that low 
malice which seem to be inherent in the nature 
of many minds. In relation to the stale charge of 
Infidelity, it is not borne out by any evidence af- 
forded either by his writings or his life. On the 
contrary, there are many passages in his works, 
which tend directly to refute it. With regard to 
that of having deserted his country, we do not 
know that the quarter form Avhich it has emanated, 
carries with it sufficient weight either of charac- 
ter or of talent, to intitle this charge to our notice, 
even w ere not the weakest and the most contemp- 
tible alternative to which Impudence and Malevo- 
lence were ever driven, in their unremitting efforts 
to defame and to disparage all that is worthy 
either of love or admiration. What has been al- 
ledged of the immorality of Don Juan, merits per- 
haps a brief consideration. It is not because the 
million have condemned this extraordinary pro- 
duction in all that exclusiveness of narrow minds 
which confounds good with evil, and right with 






54 

wrong, that we are led to notice it. It is because 
we consider it the most remarkable record of hu- 
man feelings and human frailties, that Genius ever 
prepared for the moral instruction of mankind. 
We cannot but regard this Poem in the light of a 
great and luminous Moral, inculcated and enfor- 
ced by all the eloquence of one of the most in- 
spired minds that ever descended upon mortal. 
Those who maintain the contrary, would do well, 
instead of indulging in vague declamation about 
virtues which they themselves in all probability 
never possessed, to point out by what process it is 
that this work is calculated to produce the mis- 
chievous consequences they affect to apprehend 
from it. Dr. Johnson, who was both a good Chris- 
tian and a sound Moralist, entertained a very dif- 
ferent opinion of the tendency of such works. To 
maintain that the mind which is so familiar with 
scenes of licentiousness as to depict them in all the 
fidelity of living truth, must be itself contaminated, 
is an argument long since exploded as carrying 
with it not the slightest degree of conviction. 
Even admitting however, that the heart may be 
acquainted with vice under all its disguises, the 
Mind is forever above the grossness of the Senses ; 
and hovers aloof, never an impassive spectator of 
the progress of the feelings, but the sternest and 
the most enlightened Censor of their ways. And 
thus it is, that a man of Genius is never a gross 
Voluptuary, whose ideas extend not beyond the 
gratification of his passions — but has his " bane 
and antidote" continually before him. We know 
not whether there be a more effectual mode of vi- 
siting reprehension upon vice, then that of select- 
ing, as it were, a living example of the miseries 



i)0 



which finally result from yielding with too great 
a facility to its seductive allurements. In all such 
represensations, if grossness of language and of 
sentiment be avoided, the effect will be, at least 
with minds that have been properly educated, to 
confirm and not to shake the principles of Virtue. 
In Don Juan there is a total freedom from this 
grossness of sentiment and of language. There 
is, at the same time, so much fine reflection and 
fine poetry scattered throughout the work, that, if 
there be any poison in its pages, they must be 
admitted to carry with them not the least effectual 
of antitodes. Upon a question of Morals however, 
every individual has undoubtedly the right of judg- 
ing for himself. What therefore may be the final 
decision of this or another age upon the subject 
of the moral tendency of this remarkable produc- 
tion, we will not pretend to anticipate. For our- 
selves however, we are far from thinking that it 
merits the reprehension which has been visited 
■upon it — and this for the reasons we have ventur- 
ed to assign. There is a vein of profound moral 
reflection pervading the whole work, which, in 
the midst of what appears to be the grossest li- 
centiousness, ever and anon recalls the mind from 
the allurements of the Passions, to ponder upon 
the vanity of human life and its enjoyments ; and 
with a stern and rigid impartiality to ask itself the 
melancholy question, whether the very means 
which we adopt for promoting our happiness, be 
not those precisely calculated to defeat it, and to 
ensure misery in its stead ? Such, we acknow- 
ledge, is the painful doubt with which we have 
always been inspired upon closing the pages of 
this affecting and eloquent production. That it 



5& 

was conceived under a deep and solemn convic- 
tion — the result not so much of the original con- 
clusions of a powerful mind, as of a profound 
moral experience — that the pleasures of this life 
end in the bitterest privations, and that happiness 
is at once an empty and a fatal purchase, those 
who are familiar with what was the intense and 
peculiar moral and intellectual temperament of 
the writer, will not permit themselves to doubt. 
The conjecture which has been hazarded by 
some Newspaper Editors in this country, that had 
Lord Byron lived, he would probably have de- 
teriorated as a writer, reminds us of the assiduity 
of the Cruscan Critics who endeavoured to per- 
suade Alphonso that Tasso had lost his fire, and 
that it would be well for him to remain in idle- 
ness and obscurity for the rest of his days ! The 
supposition is perfectly gratuitous, but the insinua- 
tion is utterly base. And yet what can be ex- 
pected from men who permitted themselves to 
throw a slur even upon the noble exertions which 
the Patriot Genius of the immortal Bard, with a 
fervour and a zeal characteristic of his mighty 
Spirit, had devoted to the cause of freedom and 
mankind ? We had been almost tempted to think 
that if ever there was one being more than ano- 
ther, who could have claimed an exemption from 
the common doom of.mortality — who, as was said 
of Augustus Csesar, " should never have been born, 
or should never have died," — that Lord Byron 
was that being. But upon further reflection, it 
appears to us that his death, occurring at the time 
and place it did, is rather to be envied than la- 
mented — " and though he died in his prime," to 
borrow Die beautiful idea, and equally beautiful 



67 

language of a friend and relative, " to fall from 
the meridian is to fall in the midst of glory." One 
more topic we shall briefly touch upon, and our 
grateful task is done. We shall have borne our 
humble tribute to the Worth which we loved, and 
to the Genius Avhich we admired. We shall have 
lifted our voice, however feebly, in vindication of 
the Fame which we have held, and shall alwa.ys 
hold sacred — the only legacy which Genius be- 
queathes to those whom it leaves behind to deplore 
its loss, and to despair of ever attaining to that 
high eminence from which they have been accus- 
tomed to behold and adore it — but which evil 
tongues have sought to sully and to wound. " If 
the Spirit of Byron," (to borrow again from one 
whose sentiments do honour to human Nature.) 
" can suffer a pang in another world, it must be at 
having his memory insulted by those who had 
rendered his life unhappy ; and that through the 
unworthiness, if not the treachery of a friend." 
This remark alludes to the base and contemptible 
conduct of Moore, to whom Lord Byron, in the 
unsuspecting confidence of friendship, consigned 
the Manuscript Memoirs of his Life. Incapable 
of appreciating either the honour or the favour 
which had been conferred (for it will be remem- 
bered that the Manuscript was given to Moore, 
with the generous view of relieving him, by the 
proceeds of the sale, from the pecuniary embar- 
rassments under which he then laboured) he 
treacherously delivered it into the hands of per- 
sons, who had a double motive for pursuing the 
dishonourable course, to which an instinctive re- 
gard for reputation, however worthless, will some- 
times prompt the meanest — that of consigning the 

8 



53 

Manuscript to the flames. We do not know that 
this Man, who presumed to style himself the friend 
of Lord Byron, can be called to a sufficiently se- 
vere account for such conduct — dastardly in itself, 
and in the last degree insulting to the Memory of the 
illustrious Dead whose character has been already 
but too much violated — as far as Baseness can 
pervert, or Dullness can defame. How it was that 
Lord Byron should have been so lost to the moral 
turpitude of that gross and contemptible fabrica- 
tor of " Lascivious Lyrics," we are utterly unable 
to imagine. What else than Treachery and 
Falsehood could have been expected of a man 
who had no sooner turned his back upon this 
country, where he had been received and treated 
with the utmost courtesy and kindness, than he 
conceived the vile purpose to traduce it, and 
belied the very persons whose hospitality had 
welcomed him to our shores ? Should these 
pages ever meet his eyes, he will learn that, among 
the thousands who have vindicated and applauded 
his conduct, there exists one who, however hum- 
ble he may be, presumes to entertain and to ex- 
press the most profound contempt for his charac- 
ter. With regard to the great and gallant Spirit 
whose confidence he has betrayed, and whose 
memory he has insulted, the most remarkable man 
of the times, his Writings will afford to Posterity 
the chief illustration of the age in which he lived. 
When the errors of his life, which, whatever they 
were, were those rather of the head than of the 
heart, shall have been forgotten, when even the 
sympathy which has been consecrated to his " li- 
ving agonies" shall be no more, the pure light of 
his Genius will emerge from darkness into day, a 
brighter Luminary in a world more happy. 



NOTES. 



[a) Of this species o( fanfaronades, M. De. Stael, among'others, is 
guilty when she observes, iiioneof her eloquent and passionate Letters 
upon the Life and Writingsjof Rousseau, ''It is perhaps at the expense 
ty of happiness that great talents are conferred. Nature, as if exhausted 
by these magnificent presents, often refuses to great men the qualities 
which might render them happy." 

' (6) North American Review, July 1822. 

(c) This doctrine, which seems to have originated with M. De. Stael, 
or was at all events supported by her with considerable ingenuity and 
more zeal, has been ridiculed by some and reprobated by others, as 
frivolous and presumptious ; but without having received that degree 
of attention which, as a topic at least of interestingspeculation, it seems 
to merit. Addison, it is well known, has deduced a strong hypotheti- 
cal argument in favour of the doctrine of the Soul's Immortality, from 
the circumstance of its continually progressing towards Perfection 
without ever attaining to it. Johnson likewise, seems to treat the 
notion as fantastic and vissionar}', when he observes, in the Preface 
to his Dictionary, " to pursue Perfection is to chase the Sun, which, 
when we reach the hill where he seems to set, is still behind at the 
same distance from us. " This however, is to evade and not to investi- 
gate the subject. We trust we shall not be accused of an ignorantia 
eclenchi when we remark that, of such a state of being we cannot be 
said to have any just notions, because we are unable to determine, 
first, what are the various components, their quaUties and the degrees 
of those qualities, which would be constitutive of such a state. Per- 
fectionj even relatively considered, admits of no definition, and of that 
which cannot be defined, we can have no just idea. Perfection, more- 
over, is strictly a condition, and not a quality. To speak of it there- 
fore, as an attribute of the Deitj^, is to confound a state of Being with 
those qualities, or any one of them, of which that state is originally 
compounded — which are adherent to it — and which it necessarily 
presupposes. Were, we to allow ourselves to express in a few words, 
the only notion we can have of Perfection, as derived from the de- 
scription of the moral Eden of our first Pai-ents, ere Sin had entered 
the Garden, we should describe this state as a positive negation — and 
this without involving a paradox. Such it certainly was as it existed 
in Paradise; although we are by no means prepared to say that such 
is Perfection, as we would understand the term — ^whether the moral 



11 

perfection of a Socrates, or the intellectual perfection of a Newton- 
yet such was the perfection of Adam and Eve, Milton represents the 
former propounding various questions to Raphael, which implied a de- 
gree of ignorance which, while it may be said to have constituted the 
test of his obedience, would have been incompatable with a state of 
absolute perfection. Adam, ere he had committed Sin, knew not what 
it was, or that he was capable of it— for the very cautions of the Angel 
were calculated to confirm him, in the belief of his positive exemp- 
tion from all frailty. His having been free from Sin therefore, pre- 
vious to his eating of the Apple, implied no positive moral virtue. 
His Innocence was the.result, not of a perception of, and consequent 
adherence to virtue — it was the necessary consequence of his igno- 
rance of evil — and in so far, it was a mere absence from it. Adam 
was forbidden the Tree of Knowledge, he could therefore have known 
nothing — and knowing nothing, he was ignorant — and being ignorant, 
this ignorance implied his innocence. 

The tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. 

Adam experienced this truth to liis cost. He ceased to Lc mnocent 
the moment he partook of Knowledge. Would the perfection of the 
intellectual imply that of the moral powers ? Or would the perfection 
of any one intellectual, imply that of any one moral power? And fur- 
ther, would the perfection of the moral powers imply perfect happi- 
ness ? There is perhaps a moral answer to tlicse questions, not altoge- 
ther unsatisfactory. In the first place, the fundamental doctrine of jN at- 
ural Law, that man should be allowed to pursue his own liappiness in 
his own way, would, in the case of a perfect Moral Agent, need no in- 
culcation, because perfect happiness would be implied in such a case. 
In the next place, Perfection, in this world, would be entirely out of its 
element ; and the opposition and reviling that would most inevitably 
attend it here, would evince that it was regarded as an intrusive visi- 
tation upon human Nature — a sarcastic comment upon its wretched 
frailties. In other words. Perfection would be incompatible with the 
melancholy conditions upon which we hold the tenure of life ; and in 
the ultimate fulfillment of which, the Covenant betwixt God and his 
Creatures remains to be redeemed by the latter. That " special Pro- 
vidence" which, we are told, is made manifest " even in the fall of a 
sparrow," would, in the case of a perfect moral Being, be induced 
(from its own high Moral Sense, which necessarily prompts to a justifi- 
cation of its ways to man,) to suspend the operation of those " acciden- 
tal possibilities," as well as those positive evils, which are incidental to 
time and human nature. M. De Stael defines Perfection in Writing 
to consist, " ratlier in measure than diffuseness — in that which an Au- 
thor always is, than in that which he shows himself sometimes to be — 
in a word, Peifection gives the idea of proportion rather than gran- 
deur." This is, perhaps, the perfection of the Arts and Sciences. And 
it maj- be the perfection to which the human Mind is supposed capable 
of attaining. But if it be, we fear that Mind must be admitted to have 
declined from, rather than approximated to, the standard here prescrib- 
ed, since the days of Homer and of Sophocles, of Socrates and De- 
mosthenes — and though last, not least, of those immortal Artists whose 
works have survived their names through a long lapse of ages. The 
Homeric Poems seem to be regarded as the very perfection of the Epic 



\ 



Ill 

Fable. The Drama of ^schylus and Sophocles is characterised by a 
simplicity of parts, and a unity and sing-leness of purpose, which, with 
a few exceptions, we look for in vain in the modern Theatre. Demos- 
thenes is equally a model, we are assured, to which nothing has ap- 
proached in the Senate of succeeding nations ; and the Statues and 
Architectural Remains of early Greece, have been alike the admira- 
tion and the despair of modern times. Whether the inference be ad- 
missible, that the Mind which produced these Models, must necessari- 
ly have been perfect, would never perhaps liave been a question, had 
we been able to determine whether the perfection of these Models was 
of a positive and abstract nature, or only relative. But to have deter- 
mined this point, would have been in itself an evidence of this very 
perfection. 

[d) Hence, we have always regarded as gratuitous and as unfounded 
in fact or philosophy, the common observation, that many minds of the 
highest order have been lost to the literai'y world, from having been ac- 
cidentally diverted from the pursuits of Literature to those of Politics, 
War, or some one of the learned Professions. We have had occasion 
to notice this opinion as broached by Dr. Cunie, among others, in his 
Biography of Robert Burns. The writer, in dwelling upon what he 
terms the universality of the Poetical Mind, remarks, that the same 
Mind which composed the Homeric Poems, might, underdiffereut disci- 
pline, have led armies to the field, or elevated its possessor to the 
highest honors of the Forum. Now, of all others, the Poetical Mind 
is perhaps the leaef ductile ; and is more immediately and powerfully 
influenced by that constiiutiond bias, which we have supposed to give 
direction to all minds of an higher order And it is only of such Minds 
that we would be understood to speak. If o>x cannot make a Race- 
Horse of a Mule, but the Mule may be put to any labor, and may be 
beat to the performance of any drudgery. Dean Swift, Lad he been 
disposed to avail himself of the influence which he exercised over the 
minds of Harley and St. John, might probably have obtained a seat in 
the Cabinet ; but the direction and tendency of his mind was original- 
ly and irrevocably averse from politics. He occasionally embarked 
in those of his time, it is true, but only as a writer. Milton was ap- 
pointed Latin Secretary under Cromwell, by whom he was liberally 
patronised ; but the Poet predominated over the Politician in his con- 
stitution ; and the immortal Bard was more congenially employed in 
composing the Paradise Lost, than the Populo Anglicano Defensio. 
But setting fact aside, philosophy will be admitted to bear us out upon 
this point. .Dr. Johnson defines Genius to be " a Mind of enlarged 
general powers, accidentally turned to some particular pursuit." We 
have never regarded this definition of Genius as being strictly correct. 
Who can believe for a moment, that the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte 
was destined to atchieve any other exploits than those which have im- 
mortalized his name .' Or that the genius of Lord Byron was destined 
to eminence in any other pursuit, than the one in which it has so often 
"felt with the ardour, and debated with the eloquence of heaven .^" 
We liave no objection to suppose the mind of a man of genius to be one 
of general powers, but to suppose these powers to be at the mercy of 
any bias that 'accident may impart, is to suppose one of those " acci- 



IV 

dental possibility," which have been long sijice regarded as eitlieir 
above the comprehension, or below the serious attention of the philoso- 
pher. But to suppose the mind of a man of genius to be one merely of 
general powers, is not to distinguish it from other minds of an high or- 
der. Shakespear's mind was one of general powers, so was Lord Ba- 
con's; but the quality or attribute of genius which properly discrimi- 
nates between the two minds is, that vis vivida or intellectual enthusi- 
asm, which transported the universal Bard beyond the bounds of Time, 
and made him almost familiar with Eternity. And this is the quality 
which, while it is perhaps the characteristic of every mind whose pow- 
ers lie within the department of the Fine Arts, is "more particularly 
the emblem and inspiration of the Poetical. And it is in such minds 
chiefly, that the constitutional bias we have been speaking of, is to be 
met with in all the force of an original principle. The mind of every 
man of genius is one of general powers, and such a mind, although de- 
stined for some particular pursuit congenial with its powers, and cal- 
culated therefore, to elicit them in all their force, will necessarily dis- 
tinguish itself in any department of human pursuit to ^diich its atten- 
tion may be called for a time. It is upon this ground that we are dis- 
posed to deny the claims that have been set up for Lord Wellington as 
a man of genius. As a great Military Commander he is second only 
to Bonaparte himself ; but upon the score of original powers of mind, 
pure mind in the abstract, we ap])rehend that not even the warmest 
admirers of the Englishman, would dream of comparing him with the 
wonderful Corsican. Between the two minds, how immeasurable, 
how infinite the distance ! Bonaparte was perhaps as conspicuous in 
the Cabinet, as in the Field. But Lord Wellineri^o") whether debating 
in the House of Lords, or negociating- ^^itii the Allied Sovereigns at 
Vienna, presents the somewhat dWkward and humiliating spectacle of 
a man, placed in a situation involving a degreeof responsibility beyond 
his powers of tnJnd to sustain. The general superiority of Bonaparte's 
mind over that of Lord Wellington, can only be accounted for, there- 
fore, in the original superiority of his genius, or the general powei-s of 
his mind. The stronger the original bias given to the mind, the more 
inevitable seems to be its tendency to some particular sphere of exer- 
tion, to which that bias may incline. And although this bias will be 
found to characterise eveiy mind whose powers are in the degree 
which constitues genius, it is, as we have already observed, more im- 
mediately the distinction, and, perhaps, the Conservator of those minds 
whose powers lie in the department of the Fine Arts. The minds of 
such men as Bacon and Locke, although they were Minds of the high- 
est order, were not characterized by that intensity of. the intellectual 
temperament, which is the distinguisliing trait in the poetical mind. 
Bacon, at the same time.was a man of more sensibility Ihan Locke. His 
celebrate dremark in relation to Poetry, that it seeks to " accommodate 
the shows of things to the desires of the mind," evinces, as Mr. Camp- 
bell has observed, ." a sensibility in the Sage, as deep as his wisdom." 
But, at the same time, we can more easily believe, that both Bacon 
and Locke might have been Statesmen instead of Philosophers, than 
that Shakspeare and Milton might have been Philosophers instead of 
Poets. But, while this acuteness of the intellectual temperament is at 
once the distinction and the inspiration of the poetical mind, it is, at 
the same time, the profound and inexhaustible source of those not fie- 



liiious woes which, while they seem to impart a fervour and elasticity 
to the wing-, carry not unfrequently to the heart of Genius, the damp- 
ness of Death, and even the darkness of Despair. And, — to bor- 
row the beautiful idea of Lord Byron— as the pinion which sus- 
tains the Eagle in his flight, not unfrequently affords its own fea- 
ther to the shaft which stretches him upon the plain, so, those pow- 
ers of the poetical mind which constitute its greatness, and ensure its 
immortality, appear to be incompatible with its happiness — and wound 
the heart while they prompt and inspire the understanding. This is 
perhaps a melancholy truth, and one of which, the extraordinary Indi- 
vidual who forms the subject of this Inquiry, affords a still more melan- 
choly illustration. 

(/) We are sensible that in arguing as we propose to do. upon the 
words of Bishop Buttler quoted above, we subject ourselves to the 
charge of having grossly perverted their meaning and tendency. If 
we have done so, still we think the distinction between the "actions and 
the nature and capacities of the Agent," a happy one, and greatly to 
our purpose. The Bishop, we sliall be told, designed to say in fewer 
and plainer words, that the more enlightened the Agent, the freer he 
should be from all frailty. But, however plausible and rational this 
may sound, we must remember that there is a wide diffei'ence between 
that which we are, and that which we should be. And, however true 
in the abstract it may be, that in proportion to our wisdom should be 
our virtue,- fact and observation refute the idea notwithstanding. 
But, it will be said again, we know this, and so much the worse — but 
still we maintain our position. The fact of a man's being vicious, af- 
fords no argument against the position that he should be virtuous. 
But, morally and not philosophically speaking, it appears to us that 
the existence of vice is no weak argument against the possibility of 
virtue. And we cannot but regard the contraiy argument urged 
against us, as resolving itself into a begging' of the question. It is, per- 
haps, nothing more than a fine abstraction, or Bemt Ideal of thought. 
If it be admitted, ^nd we do not think it will be denied, that great 
virtue has frequently been united to but little wisdom, and the greatest 
wisdom to but little virtue, — and further, if it be shown, as we shall 
attempt to show, how it is that the greatest mind may be the least vir- 
tuous, understanding this term with certain restrictions, we do not 
think we shall be ameanable to criticism, for having perverted^or mis- 
construed the woi'ds of Bishop Buttler quoted in the text. 

(g) The following observations from Part V. of the Inquiry mto the 
Sublime and Beautiful, appear to us to coincide with what has been 
said above, and tend to throw considerable light upon the subject. 
" Mr Locke," says Burk, "has somewhei'e observed, with his usual 
sagacity, that most general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, 
good and evil, especially, are taught before the particular modes of 
action, to which they belong, are presented to the mind ; and with them 
the love of the one and the abhorrence of tlie other — when, aftei'- 
wards, the several occurrences of life come to be applied to these 
words, and that which is pleasant often appears under the name of evil, 
and what is disagreeable to nature, is called good and virtuous, a 



VI 

strange confusion of ideas and affections arrises in the minds of many, 
and an appearance of no small contradiction between their notions and 
their actions. There are many who love virtue and who detest vice, 
and this not from hypocrisy or affectation, who notwithstanding', very 
frequently act ill and wickedly in particulars, without the least re- • 
morse, because these particular occasions never came into view, when 
the passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by certain 
words heated originally by the breath of others." These observations 
are as striking, as they are philosophical and just. The general 
words here spoken of, are usually acquired at a time of, life when it is 
impossible that the mind should attach any definite ideas to them. 
Because the force and clearness of these ideas depend upon an ex- 
perience, whether personal or acquired, of those occasions and modes 
of action, to which they relate. And this experience must always, in 
the course of nature, be subsequent to an acquaintance Avith those 
general words which, apart, at the same time, from this experience, 
carry no meaning with them to the mind ; and tend, on that account, 
to lead it astray. This, therefore, is one of those moral evils which 
no education can remedy — if it be not, in fact, one of the imperfections 
of education itself. But the misfortune seems to be, not merely that 
these words are taught previous to an experience of those occasions 
to which they apply, but that they have been allowed too wide, and 
consequently too vague an application. Virtue and Honor, are 
words which nature seems to have intended to convey the same ideas ; 
and yet, from early and false associations, we come at length to attach 
very different meanings to them. That which is often termed virtu- 
ous, is not always reconcilable to our notions of that which is honora- 
ble; and that which is esteemed honorable, still more rarely implies 
that which is virtuous. The word Virtue in I^atin, implies physical as 
well as moral merit; and in the English its meaning is almost as un- 
restricted and indeterminate. By what process of analogy or induc- 
tion it was, that the Romans came to render this word expressive of 
bodily strength, we do not pretend to determine; but we know that among 
that warlike people, bodily strength was not unfrequently viewed in 
the light of that moral quality, to which alone perhaps, the term is 
applicable. The case appears to be somewhat similar with the word 
Honor. The celebrated Oration of Mark Anthony over the dead bo- 
dy of Caesar, may be regarded as a severe comment upon the vague 
notions generally attached to this word. The noble Triumvir in- 
veighs in a strain of keen and bitter sarcasm, against the base con- 
duct of Brutus and tlie rest of the Conspiratoi-s, who 

Stabbed great Csesar ; crying, long live Coesar .' 

And yet, says the Orator, 

" Brutus is an honorable man 
So are they all, all honorable men f 

It is not merely then, that general words are taught before the occa- 
sions are known to which they apply, it is that their application is too 
general and indeterminate. It is not merely that the words Virtue 
and Honor are acquired as mere sounds, before the mind has any cor- 



vu 



respondent notion of the sense they are intended to convey, it is that 
this sense varies — and soems to be one thing- to-day, and another to- 
morrow^. The consequence of all this very frequently is, particularly 
with minds of an ardent temperament, that when such minds come to 
think and examine for themselves, and have acquired from experience 
and observation that knowledge of things, which is widely different 
from a knowledge of words, they are led to detect the errors of 
early associations ; and the want of that consistency between what they 
see and what they have been taught, without which, the most fatal mis- 
apprehension of important truths is likely to prevail. The mind which 
has been thus duped and led astray by false associations of words, is 
generally disposed to review and to revise all that it has acquired iu 
its earlyand impassive state — and the result of this moral retrospection, 
is as generally the erection of a system of its own, in matters in which 
it has been thus deceived by the vagueness of general terms. 

{h) This may seem an invidious distinction, but it is one, nevertheless, 
sanctioned by our actual observation ; and, we doubt not, by that of 
almost every other man. 

(i) Analogy of Religion. Part I. Chap. V- 

{k) Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. 
As to be hated needs but to be seen. 
But seen to oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. Essay on man. 

When the Poet wrote the above lines, he must have designed them to 
apply exclusively to the man of vicious practical habits ; and they cer- 
tainly apply with great truth in such a case — although they are not 
very original as a practical observation, nor very just as a philosophi- 
cal induction. 

(Z) It is certainly retaliation upon Society in the end, because Socie- 
ty suffers to a certain degree from the vices of individuals. 

(m) Remarks on the assumed Analogy between Poetry and Painting, 
published in the National Intelligencer, for October, 1822. 

(n) Lord Bolinbroke is of opinion, that a man will profit by the ex- 
perience he may acquire in the world, according to the temper and ha- 
bit of mind which may have been previously unfolded and formed. 
" The same experience," he obsesves, " which secures the judgment 
of one man or excites him to virtue, shall lead another into errour, or 
plunge him into vice."* The truth of this remark has been illustrated, 
we fear, by the moral failings of many virtuous minds ; and is a circum- 
stance to be accounted for only in the way in which we have attempted 

*Letter8 on the Study of History. Letter 11. p. 25. 

9 



Vlll 



to explain it. Tlie same writer observes, that the chief advantage to 
be derived from tlie study of History is, that " it prepares us for ex- 
perience, and guides us in it." This observation however, will by no 
means admit of an universal application. Were it unexceptionably 
true, that this study, or any other, is capable of preparing us for an in- 
tercourse with the world, the very cases we have been supposing, 
would be the less pardonable, and indeed could scarce possibly occur. 
Histoi-y, which has been denominated or defined, "Philosophy teaching 
by example," has certainly its uses ; but, we fear, that the influence 
of its precepts and examples on the moral character, will never be ac- 
counted in the number. The topic doubtless, might afford many cu- 
rious and perhaps useful speculations. Before, however, we could 
hope to establish the doctrine of the practical uses of History, we 
should have to encounter the Moral Philosophy of Adam Smith — parti- 
cularly those parts of his Theory of Moral Sentiments, which treat ot 
the Nature and Origin of the Principle of Moral Approbation. 

(o) In the V. Part of his Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, 
Burke remarks, " So little does Poetry depend for its effect upon the 
power of raising sensible images, that I am convinced it would lose a 
very considerable part of its energy, if this were the necessary result 
of all description." And yet, in one of the earlier numbers of the Quar- 
terly Review, (for 18 10, we believe) we are told that it is this very 
power of raising sensible images, which constitutes the great merit of 
Sir Walter Scotts's poetry. When the Reviewer observes, in allusion 
to his poetry, that it " strikingly illustrates the analogy between poetry 
and painting," the remark will be admitted, we think, to imply the 
power of raising sensible images — a power which Burke denies to po- 
etry. The fact is however, that this power must be conceded to poe- 
try ; although it by no means implies that botanic accuracy in deline- 
ating natural objects, which Mr. Bowles contends for, and which is pe- 
culiar to the descriptive branch of poetry, (the lowest branch of the art, 
according to Lord Byron) and the distinguishing feature in that of Sir 
Walter Scott. Poetry may present us with the finest and the most af- 
fecting pictures or images, without any laboured process of the kind. 
In fact, this minuteness of detail is destructive of that instantaneous and 
striking effect which is always produced by fine poetry. It may be 
said to hunt down the image so completely, that the mind either passes 
it over altogether, or but indistinctly perceives it. Poetry, in order 
to raise images of objects, whether animate or inanimate, has only to 
concentrate those " traits of truth," which are immediately and every 
where acknowledged. In the following extract from Lord Byron's 
beautiful Poem called the Dream, we are presented, by a few genuine 
touches, with an Eastern Picture perhaps more perfect, even in its li- 
beral form, than Painting could possibly have rendered it. 

He lay 

Reposing from the noontide sultriness, 

Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade 
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names 
Of those who rear'd them ; by his sleeping side, 



IX 



>>ioo(l camels grazing, and some goodly steeds 
Were fasten'd near a fountain ; and a man 
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while, 
While many of his tribe slumbfer'd around ; 
And they were canopied by the blue sky, 
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, 
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven. 

There is nothing^ of labour or minutenes in this exqtiisite description. 
The touclies of the wonderful Artist are few but g'raphic — lig'ht but dis- 
tinct, and vivid yet perfectly clear. Had Burke lived to see theso 
lines, he would have been forced to acknowledge that they present one 
of the most beautiful of " sensible images" — and would have been led to 
form a very different opinion of the powers of Poetry, from the one 
which he seems to have entertained. That there are many abstrac- 
tions which poetry is incapable of representing, is no argument against 
its power of raising or presenting pictures of such objects as our senses 
are conversant with. Painting itself, is incapable of embodying cer- 
tain abstract ideas. When Burke tells us therefore, that Virgil's de- 
scription of the formation of the Thunder under the hammer of the Cy- 
clops, conveys no image whatever of the thing described, we would ask 
whether any Painting could present us with an image or picture of a 
mere effect in nature ? No poetry or painting can embody the Thun- 
der, because we cannot embody objects of sound. 

(/?) These lines, will probably remind the reader of More's beautiful 
translation of Anacrean's Ode to this musical little Insect, 

In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth. 

(q) This objection lies with peculiar force against the Tragedy of 
''middling life," asit has been termed by Mr. Campbell. So far from 
••' accommodating the shows of things to the desires of the mind," which 
is' the legitimate end of all poetry, the familiar tragedy tends to bring 
down these desires to the realities of things — which is directly to defeat 
that end, and is the very reverse of Bacons celebrated proposition. It 
is for this reason that Comedy ranks so much below Tragedy — its 
representations are too familiar to produce any lasting impression. 
The tragedy of middling life comprises much powerful dramatic talent; 
and admits, no doubt, of many stricking and affecting situations ; but 
it rejects the embelishments of poetry and the nobler passions, and is 
so far essentially inferior to the more dignified tragedy. There are 
many scenes in George Barnwell well conceived and executed, but 
the only effect which either the perusal or representation of it ever 
had with us, was to produce a strong sensation of disgust. It is per- 
haps upon the same principle, that we may account for the want of 
interest in the Sentimental Comedy ; and for the mirth rather than 
the melancholy, which its Poor Gentlemen, its Lieutenant Worthing- 
tons," full of their Canada crotchets," who "disdain all solicitations," 
and yet are continually incurring obligations, are calculated to in- 
spire. There is alwaj's something of the ridiculous (than which no- 
thing can be more distructive of poetic eiFect) thrown around such 



personages by the comments in which the rest of the Dramatis PersoncB 
usually indulge. So that these unfortunate persons seem brought 
upon the stage merely for the amusement of the audience; to whom 
they might very appropriately address the question of Lieutenant 
Worthington to Frederick, " I cannot think you came here to insult 
me?" With regard to those representations of poetry which border 
upon the horrible and disgusting, they fail entirely of the intended ef- 
fect. Dr. Wharton, in his Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, 
has given us a literal prose translation from T)ante, which affords 
a striking illustration of our remark. The Poet represents a 
whole family perishing from hunger in a dungeon ! It is a strong 
conception, characteristic of " the Bard of hell," and forcibly 
delineated — but we turn with loathing from the picture — ^why ? be- 
cause it is full of that disgusting minuteness of detail which, while it 
constitutes the great merit of iLe composition, presents to the fancy 
images of human suffering too immediately reflected from the life. 
Who that listened to Burk's celebrated Speech upon the impeachment 
of Warren Hastings in the House of Commons, but must have felt 
his blood run cold, and his heart sicken at the horrible fidelity of de- 
tail, with which the transcendant genius of the indignant Orator de- 
picted the enormities of a Monster who, with a fastidiousness not un- 
frequently alUed to crime, had refined upon human cruelty to a de- 
gree almost inconceiveable to thought. It was a fine effort of Genius, 
but a disgusting picture — and this for the reason we have just assigned. 
The celebrated passage from Dante to which we have alluded, is 
undoubtedly the original of Lord Byron's beautiful and pathetic Tale of 
the Prisoner of Chillon. But let anj^ one attend to the exquisite 
and affecting narrative of the English Poet, and he will find that it is 
totally divested of those disgusting traits which mark its Italian 
Prototype. 



MONODY, 

ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRO^. 

Thei'e is a tear that flows for all who die, 

The humblest plaim the tribute of a sigh; 

None fall unhonored, though unknown to fame, . 

Affection loves, affliction mourns each name. 

For still some tie of nature binds the heart. 

And nought can rend it like the words, " we part ! 

That bitter doom whioli all who live must bear, 

Slieds over life the darkness of despair ; 

Bids fond affection mourn the hope it nurst. 

And o'er its blighted feelings spend itself — and burst. 

Th' untutor'd peasant, bondman to the soil 

On which he treads, who knows no life but toil, 

Still leaves some void in some aching breast, 

Some sigh of sorrow when he sinks to rest. 

Such is the common tributary woe 



.* 



XI 



Which all who live to all who die must owe, 

But, there's a softer and a tenderer tie, 

A fonder love, a deeper sympathy. 

That links the heart to the immortal Mind, 

The all of life that lingers stiU behind, 

When death and dampness have usurped* the light, 

And laid the form in darkness and in blight. 

And his was of tlie brightest ! such as ne'er 

Sliall shine again through many a rolling year ! 

The moon goes down — the sun and stars decline, 

But rise again, — and set, — and rise to shine : — 

But scarce in twice a thousand j'ears is given 

To flash o'er earth the Meteor light of heaven. 

The awful splendours of that bursting Sun 

Blaze, dazzle, and explode — and all is done. 

Such is the dying glorj', such the gloom 

That marks thy course, Oh Genius ! to the tomb. 

A few brief years of fickle fame blown o'er. 

The hero sinks — the bard is heard no more — 

The wretched bauble of a doubtful name. 

The only legacy bequeathed to fame ; 

That loves to lie when virtue is its theme, 

The madman's phrenzy, or the poet's dream ; — ^ 

But utters stern, inhuman truths, to try 

How much of venom links with Calumny ; 

How the dull fool, the envious, and the vain, 

Will darken truth, and lie from lust of gain — 

Slur o'er the virtues which they cannot shake, 

Pervert, conceal, and damn for falsehood's sake I 

Yes, damn — as far as Dullness can defame, 

That never praises where it cannot blame. 

Witness the coward, whose ignoble aim 

Struck at the early promise of his fame, 

Who left a base and prostituted page. 

The most unblushing libel on the age I 

Whose meaner spirit and plebeian blood, 

Instinctive shrink from all that's great or good. 

Too dull for feeling, callous e'en to shame, 

Inheritor of infamy by name ! 

Too vile for just rebuke, at once to vain ; 

The worst of critics and perhaps of men. 

To live despised, to die without a tear. 

The meet reward of all his actions here. 

Perhaps hereafter doomed himself to feel 

The gentle castigations of that wheel, 

His pious spirit and meek love of truth 

Bade him prepare for genius and for youth. 

But be his last and deadliest thought to know, 

His was the first and the unkindest blow 

That, ere the Eaglet chipped his early shell. 

Aimed at his heart, and aiming struck too well ! 

The noble bird, though wounded, plumed again 

His mighty wing, and soared aloof from men. 



Xli 



And though the venom but impelled lus tliglii 

To higher efforts and nobler height, 

The shaft withdrawn, the poison rankled still, 

And never ceased to pain — but could not kill. 

Bear witness thou — but why revert to thee, 

Why tell again thy guilt's dark history. 

Or wake anew the pangs that must perforce 

Feed on tliy heart as V ultures on a corse ? 

If thou has aught of human feeling left. 

Think of the widowed heart thou hast bereft ; 

Think of the ties thy perfidy hath broke. 

Think of the love that withered at the stroke, 

The deadly stroke thy malice coldly dealt, 

And thou wilt feel — if thou hast ever felt — 

Feel — tiU thy heart in its own flames consume, 

Nor even find a refuge in the tomb ! 

But like the victim round lostEblis' throne. 

Condemned to tortures endless and alone, 

Thy life an immortality of pain, 

A heart that never can know peace again. 

Or if at length permitted to expire. 

Die like the Scorpion in the 'midst of fire ! 

But shouldst thou live, and haply live to trace 

The Father's image in that Infant's face, 

As yet unconscious of the bitter woe 

Which springs from loss of those we loved below. 

How will it wrap thy guilty heart in flame 

To hear that infant lisp that father's name ! 

But she, at least, to natui'e's dictates true. 

Will spurn the wretch who tore the links in two. 

That left her lonely ere her morn had fled. 

To mourn, and early orphan ! o'er the dead. 

But, it is past — his injured Spirit ne'er 

Shall sigh again o'er all that wounded here. 

And has tliat awfwl spirit passed away, 

And ceased to animate its haughty clay ? 

The minstrel's hand is cold — the lyre unstrung, 

And hushed the numbers of the prophet's tongue. 

That voice that erst in Albion's Isle arose — 

Dark isle! the source of those domestic woes 

That like a cloud o'erhung his morning ray, 

And veiled the promise of a better day — 

That voice attuned to themes of love and woe, 

With a deep skill each deeper chord to know ; 

That pierced the depths of human life to find 

Subjects congenial with his mighty mind ; 

That o'er the h^re with prophetic burst. 

Poured the deep sorrows tliat his heart had nursl — 

That voice that woke tlie Childe's immortal strain 

Of wars, and woes, and wilds beyond the main ; 

That sung, with touching eloquence imbued. 

The Chieftain's glory, and the Clansman's feud — 

The wreck of love — the loss of peace — the woe 



XIll 

Confiding^ hearts are doomed to feel below — 

Such hearts as burst upon the sea-beat shore 

Where sad Medora sunk to rise no more ; 

Such hearts as burned in Parasina's breast, 

Who, where she should not love, yet loved the best, 

With a deep feeling virtue dares not know, 

But with a fondness seldom felt below — 

Such hearts as broke when Love that cheered in vain, 

Saw Hope with Lara sink upon the plain, 

Revealed the truth its fondness sought to hide. 

And in a burst ofphrenzy spent itself — and died! 

But deeper, darker, deadlier still, the heart 

Which drove stern Manfred from man's guilty mart, 

To roam the desert's genial solitude. 

Where no rude cares or harsher griefs intrude. 

Sick of the busy bitterness of life. 

Whose latest scenes are not exempt from strife. 

His wounded spirit sought the home of storms. 

Held dark communion with the mountain's forms. 

Drank deep instruction through the heart and eye, 

And found " 'tis not so difficult to die."* 

The voice is hushed those scenes that chaunted o'er ; 

The minstrel sleeps ,on earth to wake no more ! — 

The Muse laments her favorite's early end. 
And o'er his tomb is sorrowing seen to bend, 
While with pale cheek and trembling hand she weaves 
Her latest wreath for him o'er whom she grieves. 
In her dark eye the tear grows gathering fast, 
As o'er his cold remains she looks her last. 
When at the shrine another Form appears. 
And blends her sorrows with the Muse's tears. 
Though veiled in gloom, the glories of her eye. 
And martial front, proclaimed her Liberty ! 
From Helle's stream she traced her mournful way, 
In Hellas' name her tribute here to pay. 
The silent Goddess stalked round the dead. 
Closed her sad eye, and drooped her heavy head- 
Then bared her temples to the Western breeze, 
\nd sought a refuge o'er Atlantic seas. 

The Lyre is broke — the Muse's heart is riven — 
And with her favorite Minstrel fled to heaven I 

^'Old man, 'tis not difficult to die."— Jlfon/rerf. 



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